This morning on Breakfast Television in Montreal I actually made it through a taste test (well, almost) of six stellar sakes now available in Montreal!
Did I even breathe? (See above.)
I also talked about why the Montreal sake scene has recently boomed (shout-out to Viet of Le Blossom for bringing in the food and sommelier Derek Vaillancourt from the same for insight into sake education in restaurants).
Since I never get through everything I want to say, including the prices and where to get these and other awesome sakes, here are my notes below.
Thanks to Ozawa Canada, Metropolitan Premium Wines and Sakes and Sebastien Langlois of Bacchus76 for the sake. If you want to order private import sake through them, here are their contacts:
To order nama sakes from Bacchus76: sebastien@bacchus76.com (Ask him to send you his whole list – it’s awesome; the other companies’ lists are online)
To order sake from Metropolitan Premium Wines and Sakes: http://www.metrowines.com/
To order sake from Ozawa Canada: http://www.ozawa.ca/
Why is Montreal’s sake scene picking up right now?
There are a handful of new private import companies bringing in better products. Before, it was mostly cheap, lower quality options (and the SAQ selection is still not very good), but you can expect that to change once demand picks up, which it will thanks to the better sake lists at the restaurants below
Why is it better to try sakes at restaurants than buying bottles at the SAQ?
Most of these sakes from these newly arrived and launched private import companies are still not available at the SAQ, so it’s best to try them at restaurants and then order cases of the ones you really love.
Where are the best places to drink sake in Montreal?
You can find cheap sake at most sushi restaurants, but you’re going to find better high end options at some of the better Japanese restaurants and izakayas in the city, like Le Blossom, Jatoba and Marusan.
If a place is only serving one type of sake and “hot or cold” are the only options, I’m not ordering it. Some sake can be served warm, but most high-end sake is served chilled. Heating low quality sake is a trick to mask a lot of off-flavours.
The best place to try a variety of sake at a good price (in my opinion) is at Le Blossom, at 1101 de Maisonneuve East and Amherst in the Village. They have 50% off bottles on Sunday nights! That’s an incredible deal, since a $35 bottle could cost $80, $90 or over $100 in a restaurant! So the 50% off deal makes it almost the same price as buying private import, and you don’t have to order a whole case.
Le Blossom also has the best by-the-glass sake selection I know of in the city, and the servers there are really good at making you not feel like an idiot when you don’t know what to order.
Sommelier Derek Vaillancourt says part of teaching people about sake is letting them taste a few before deciding on a glass or bottle. He has 33 bottles of sakes on his menu and more are coming in February.
According to him and Jatoba’s sake sommelier Marc-André Nadeau, who’s currently the only sake-certified expert in the province, it’s important for a restaurant to have a wide range of sakes at different price points, from 300mL junmai daiginjos (sake with the most highly polished rice), to 720mL namas (unpasteurized sakes for adventurous drinkers – the sake version of natural wine) to yamahai or kimoto (old-styles of production that use wild yeasts) to nigoris (the cloudy sake that’s a bit sweeter and Derek says pairs well with dessert, like Le Blossom’s lava matcha cake) to honjozos.
Fortunately, there will soon be more knowledgeable sake servers in the city, since the WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) is going to be offering their level 3 sake certification this February in Montreal, which is offered with the support of the Japanese government. The teachers of the course go through certification in Japan. And you don’t need levels 1 and 2 to do the level 3 course, so any servers, sommeliers or bartenders interested can take the level 3 course.
I tried a lot of these at Kampai Montreal, a sake festival that came to Montreal from Toronto for the first time this fall, and at RAW Wine, another salon, both evidence of the growing sake trend in the city.
What sake did I bring into the Breakfast Television studio this morning?
Toji No Banshaku (aka “brewmaster’s choice” because it’s what the brewers like to drink after a day of brewing.)
Honjozo is sake with some alcohol added, and then diluted, which can make really rich and earthy or fruity sakes).
This a family owned brewery in Niigata, Japan that’s been in the family for 20 generations, since the 1500s! The brewers grow their own rice, which is rare.
It’s a honjozo sake, which means alcohol has been added. You get a lot of esters from the added cane sugar alcohol, which breaks up the rice mash and creates all these tropical aromas, like pineapple and guava, as well as the more typical melon notes. So it’s not about making the drink more alcoholic, or masking flavours or preserving the sake, it’s about releasing flavours and aromas.
From Metropolitan Premium Wines and Sakes: $24.95 for 720mL in private import, so you’ll see it for $60-$75 on wine lists in restaurants
Dassai 50
This is a pillar of many sake lists around the world. Because Le Blossom sells a lot more sake than most sushi restaurants, they can sell really high quality sakes like this one by the glass. It’s a very well known high quality junmai daiginjo that you’ll see on other sake menus in Montreal and around the world, but I’ve never seen a better price in Montreal than at Le Blossom. The 50 means the rice has been polished to 50% of its original size, which removes a lot of potentially off-putting flavour and aromas, making a smoother, more elegant sake.
-From yamaguchi prefecture, known for very pure water, which is like the terroir of sake
The brewery only makes Junmai daiginjos, which is rare.
This is an incredibly clean, pure tasting sake, which you get at higher levels of polish.
-you also get that purity from the giant centrifuge that the brewery invested in to press the sake from the mash, so there’s no pressure when it’s spun at super high speeds, and is separated into layers, so all the off esters can be avoided.
-Opening a brewery in upstate New York this year associated with CIA (culinary institute of America)
-There’s also dassai 23 and 39, which are polished even more to make it even purer, though more expensive because it takes more of the smaller rice to make a bottle of sake.
-From Metropolitan Premium Wines and Sakes: $49.95 for 720mL or $25.95 for 300mL. Dassai 39 for $71.95 for 720 and dassai 23 is $134.95 720mL
3. Mutemuka Junmai Nama Gen Shizenshu – I love this unpasteurized sake. It smells like white chocolate but it’s not sweet or dessert-y. It’s so good with anything from miso black cod to chicken skewers to beef.
-it’s made with Japanese-certified organic rice, which is very rare and very hard to certify and makes the sake more expensive because the rice paddies can produce about half as much rice – it’s like low-yield grape vines, which often yield higher quality wine
It’s not filtered with charcoal, like a lot of sake, and it’s undiluted, so it’s pretty high alcohol at 18%, which gives you a lot of esters and flavours
-I like the after-taste too, how it softens like cream and doesn’t have that harsh bite and burn that comes with cheaper sake.
From Bacchus65: It’s $40 for 720mL (for 6) or $17.40 for 300mL (for 24)
4. Masumi Hiyaoroshi – Junmai Gingo – Yamahai Style
The label, Masumi, comes from the Miyasaka Brewing Company, the highest elevation brewery in japan.
This comes from a more than 300-year-old brewery in Nagano prefecture, in an area called the Japanese alps.
It’s a very respected brewery owned by a famous family.
The sake is only pasteurized once whereas most sakes are pasteurized twice (it’s a “nama-cho,” which means the first pasteurization, not the second), so it keeps more of its flavours, making it very vibrant and fruity.
This is made in the Yamahai style, which takes longer but is kind of like using indigenous yeasts in wine, to get a certain acid level and flavour style, which means the lactic acid that gives it a lot of its flavour happens naturally. It’s riskier because there’s more chance that off flavours can get into the sake, but this brewery does it well, very consistent
They use indigenous “alps” yeast developed within the brewery.
It has a lovely zippiness of nama-cho, but it’s aged 6 months so it’s more complex.
Fun facts: Masumi means “Mirror of Truth” and this seasonal sake is nicknamed “Sleeping Beauty.”
Marusan in Montreal’s Old Port has another one of the Masumi sakes on tap!
It’s $35.95 for 720mL from Metropolitan Premium Wines and Sakes
5. Mio Sparkling Sake – I chose this one just to show that some brewers are making different styles of sake including sparkling. This is perfect for an aperitif. It’s refreshing and bubbly and a great replacement for cava or prosecco or in a sparkling wine cocktail.
It’s also low alcohol at 5% and very affordable.
From Ozawa Canada: 300mL for $13 bottle
It sold over a million cases in Japan in its second year (now it’s in its fifth or 6th year)
6. Tsukasabotan Yamayuzu Yuzu fruit-infused sake
This sake tastes like Japanese limoncello
Yama Yuzu means “mountain grown yuzu”, which is a type of Japanese citrus
In Izakayas in Thailand, these fruit-flavoured sakes were huge sellers when I was there a few years ago. Instead of ordering fancy bottles of Junmai Daiginjo, which was seen as what old people would drink, groups of young businessmen (and it was always men) were getting bottles of these.
Sweet flavoured sakes are only now becoming more popular in North America, which means they’ll be big in Montreal in five-10 years…so jump on this future trend early.
This sake comes from the Kochi area of Japan, which you can think of as the Amalfi coast of Japan.
These types of sakes (this one included) are dangerously tasty and sweet. And even though this is just 8% alcohol, it goes down fast. Enjoy, but be careful!
$37.75 from Ozawa Canada
7. Wakatake Onikoroshi “Demon Slayer” Junmai Daiginjo sake
This was the first bottle of sake I ever ordered with an entire Japanese multi-course meal.
What blew me away was how the flavour changed with each course, so it tasted different with scallops than with hamachi nigiri than with miso-glazed meat.
Fortunately, it’s one of the best-selling sakes from Ozawa Canada in Montreal, so you’ll be able to find it fairly easily in restaurants, like Park and Maiko Sushi in DDO.
Otherwise, it’s $61 from Ozawa Canada
8. Dewazakura Ichiro Junmai Daiginjo
This is full of silky fruit – strawberries, papaya, pineapple, with anise and licorice
Dewazakura brewery opened in the 1800s.
Fun fact: the sons go to study sake with the Masumi brewery and the Masumi sons studied with Dewazakura brewers
The brewery mills their rice on site, which only about half the breweries in Japan do (Masumi also does this)
$65 from Metropolitan Premium Wines and Sakes
9. Hakkaisan Junmai Ginjo sake – This is made from snow water from Niigata. It’s a Junmai Gingo, but each rice kernel is polished to 50% of its original size, so it could officially be a Junmai Dai Ginjo, which is thought to be higher quality. It’s dry, clean and crisp
$48 from Ozawa Canada
And they have a 3-year aged one from the same line. They use a Yamada Nishiki rice in addition to the gohyakumangoku rice, which is usually used for higher grade sake. Don’t use any air conditioning, but they keep the temperature steady between 2-5˚C with snow insulation.It’s $67 a bottle from Ozawa Canada.
Any advice on ordering sake? Any sake etiquette or tips?
Ask for suggestions, taste a few if you can, and keep exploring, because I can almost guarantee that if you think you don’t like sake, you just haven’t had great sake yet.
And it all depends on what you drink it with. It doesn’t have to be sushi! A pure junmai ginjo could go with oysters with a passionfruit mignonette, or an aged sake (which is rare) could go with earthy shiitake or porcini mushrooms. And an aromatic junmai daiginjo could go with scallops in beurre blanc or black cod.
Which is why I had snacks from Le Blossom on set today, which included chicken karaage (think Japanese fried chicken with spicy mayo), a Bubba Shrimp maki roll (tempura shrimp, scallop, avocado, cucumber, jalapeño, yuzu and unagi sauce), a matcha lava cake and spiced edamame with sesame oil so aromatic that the BT crew kept drifting over before the segment…
Fun fact (and something that’s becoming more popular): Both Jatoba and Le Blossom serve sake in wine glasses so you can swirl it and enjoy the aromas the same way you would a glass of wine.
Etiquette: Don’t pour sake for yourself.
So how can you buy these sakes to drink at home?
You can buy these to drink at home by ordering directly from the private import companies. You often have to buy 3, 6 or 12 bottles, depending on the sake, which can be pricey, so it’s a good idea to split an order with a friend or two. And the sakes don’t come in that frequently, and quantities are low for now because demand is still low compared to other major cities and because most sakes don’t age well, so you might have to wait for your order. But you can contact Sebastien at Bacchus76 directly for namas and some other really interesting bottles, or go to the websites of Metropolitan Wines and Ozawa for these others.
Kampai!
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