Sake on Long Island: Everything you need to know

You might remember your first taste of cold, crisp sake, so different from the piping-hot porcelain bottles that are mainstays of many an indifferent sushi bar. Delicate flavors of fruity pear and wildflowers dance along the tongue, and a tantalizing world begins to appear with each sip.

It’s not difficult to fall in love with sake, to incorporate it into your regular drinks rotation. But where do you start? It’s virtually a Japanese art form, complex and not inexpensive. Unless, of course, you’re in the hands of an expert.

So this is what you do. Pop around to the parking lot behind the Japanese grocery store Hanamaru Mart, on Jericho Turnpike, and walk into Hanamaru Sake, which may boast the largest selection—200-plus bottles—on Long Island.

Inside, wall-to-wall refrigerators are stacked with bottles, cans and jars of varying prices, all with their own gorgeous or whimsical labels. Much of the writing is in Japanese, but there are flavor charts to help you figure out what best suits your palate.

And then there’s the manager Lawrence Wang, who will help you discover a $9 can of junmai sake brewed with snowmelt from the northern Hokkaido region, or a juicy junmai ginjo sake from Akabu Brewing Company in the northeastern Tohoku Region, or a Yamahai-style sake from Tedorigawa brewery with aromas of “buttery corn, butterscotch and cream” (both decidedly pricier, at $51). In general, the least-expensive bottle will run you about $25, and from there, they go all the way up to $655, with a $2,000 bottle available for order as well.

Sake is often described as rice wine, but sticklers point out that wine is made from grapes, which contain plenty of natural sugars to fuel the conversion into alcohol, whereas sake is made from rice kernels converted into sugar with the help of a mold called koji. No mold, no sake.

The ancient, colorless beverage, treasured for its purity and complexity, can prove even more versatile than European-style grape wines. It’s higher in alcohol than wine and doesn’t benefit from aging. In this respect, sake is more like beer, and it’s why DIYers are drawn to home-brewing.

When it comes to larger producers, “Even though it’s the same rice, the same water, the same yeast, they can create so many different kinds [of sake],” Wang said. “Every label of sake has a different taste. That’s the most enjoyable feeling that if you drink it, you will really know so many different sensitivities.”

Wang prefers to pair many of his sakes with the salty Japanese snacks—such as wasabi green peas, shrimp chips and seaweed-wrapped rice crackers—that they sell next door at Hanamaru Mart. Good-quality sakes like junmai daiginjo, made from highly polished rice, can be paired with grilled seafood dishes and fried tempura, while medium-grade sakes with earthier flavors provide balance to sashimi, he said.

For food pairings, he tends to stick with Japanese or even French dishes, because the stronger flavors of Korean and Chinese food are better suited to beer.

But Yuki Mori, of the Greenport sake and noodle spot Stirling Sake, thinks you can incorporate sake into a wide range of meals. “Sake is made from rice, so it goes with many things,” he said.

At home, for example, Mori suggests pairing sakes with cheese, especially aged ones such as gouda and Gruyère: Their umami-based richness offsets the clean flavors of the sake. At Stirling Sake, he serves it alongside sushi rolls, ramen and rice bowls—as well as in sake tasting flights, where you can choose from categories that include ginjo (where the rice has been polished down to 60 percent of its original shape), daiginjo (the rice has been polished down to 50 percent or less) or the unfiltered cloudy sake nigori.

Premium sakes such as ginjo and daiginjo are typically consumed slightly cold but not too cold, about 45 degrees. (Take it out of the fridge about 10 minutes or so before serving.) But every sake producer has its own rules, so really, it’s best to ask an expert like Wang or Mori for guidance.

Wang, who worked in the restaurant industry before managing Hanamaru Sake, said his family owns a sake shop in Osaka, Japan, where he grew up. He often keeps a few bottles open and will give a quick tasting, with more formal events on Saturdays. On a recent visit, this led to a fabulous blue bottle of Hizo Otokoyama Junmai Ginjyo ($24.99), which was smooth and full-bodied with a minerality that made it almost too easy to drink. On a second visit, he recommended a fruity Kamonishiki Nifudazake ($37) from 2022 that’s recently become available in the United States, and only in New York. It has an aroma of fresh pear, and its great complexity stems from it being unpasteurized.

Wang also offers instructions on storing sake, even encasing it in bubble wrap to keep it cold during the car journey. Hanamaru sells inexpensive porcelain cups decorated with cartoon cats, but, if you prefer, you can also purchase the traditional small boxes of cedar or cypress wood. Wang explained that in the early days of sake, porcelain cups weren’t widely available, so the Japanese used the wood of the hinoki cypress trees that grew naturally in the area. These days, the boxes are reserved for celebrations.

“We didn’t have glasses in the old days. But we had trees,” he said. “Now it is a symbol. For example, every new year, we open a new sake .… My kids graduated, I graduated, it’s a celebration, we use the cups.”

By Andi Berlin

andi.berlin@newsday.comAndiBerlin

Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.