Joining a Monthly Sake Club

My First Sake Club Package

Recently there’s been a spate of adverts in Japanese newspapers and leaflets through the door for wine, beer and sake monthly clubs.

Think it must be the start of the “financial year” or something. Anyway, toyed with the idea of joining a wine club but then thought, when in Japan…

So I signed up for a 6 month Sake Club.
I pay about ￥4800/month ($48) and receive three 720ml bottles a month of specially selected sakes from breweries all around Japan.

All the sakes had been entered into the 2009 Slow Food Contest (スローフードニッポン２００９). 131 sake breweries from all over Japan entered their sakes and (I guess) I will be sent the best 18 of those – my Japanese isn’t great but I think that’s what the leaflet says.

Anyway, the first package arrived the other day and this was inside it…

Sake Club

The bottle on the left is a Junmaishu from Choryo Shuzo (長龍酒造) in Nara (follow the link for their English homepage), the middle is Kimoto Hanahato Junmaishu from Enoki Brewery in Hiroshima, and the last one is an Atsukan Special (燗スペシャル） from Ninki-Ichi in Fukushima prefecture. (Atsukan is sake drunk warm, Reishu is cold).

So far I’ve only tried the Kimoto Hanahato (which I reviewed here) and a fantastic sake it is too, also recommended to be drunk warm (atsukan) like the Atsukan Special, but I tried it both and although better warm, very drinkable chilled too.

I’m very pleased with my decision to join this club based on the first tasting!
The next batch arrives mid-May and I’m sure I’ll be able to get through the other two bottles before that arrives…

Update:
I’ve now tried and reviewed all the sakes and 2 out of the three were excellent and one was fairly good.
Futaho “The Origin of Sake”
Kimoto Hanahato Junmaishu
Ninki Ichi Atsukan Special