From The Brewers’ Journal – April 1915
Forty-five million dollars a year is paid into the Japanese national treasury by the brewers of Japan. The national drink is saké, the fabled “tea” of the marriage service and the tea gardens of the flowery kingdom. Saké is brewed from fermented rice and contains about twelve per cent of alcohol. It is served in little cups, quite hot, it looks and tastes very much like our sauterne wine. Japan boasts of ten thousand breweries, and the government recognizes the importance of the industry and does all in hits power to foster it. An experimental brewery is operated at Sakai by the government where students are taught the art of making saké. Each brewer has his own peculiar idea of what makes his brew the best and quite like our own brewers a great difference of opinion exists as to which bottle is the best. Saké comes in a white porcelain bottle which the brewer argues is the only proper bottle for saké to appear in. Another brewer puts his up in a brown glass bottle and he argues that saké in any other bottle isn’t saké at all but a vile concoction. While the third man puts his up in white glass bottles and draws the attention of the customer to the fact that he can see what he is getting. So, the merry war of opinion of what kind of a bottle is best goes on, the government experimental brewery is discreetly silent about the bottle, it contents itself with giving the ideal chemical formula for saké.
Crescent City Brew Talk 