By Eduardo San Marcos
On September 16, 305 Wines of South Miami hosted a guided sake tasting, where the ultra-premium Dassai Blue sakes were presented in Miami for the first time. The reception was attended by Kentaro Mizuuchi, Consul of Japan in Miami.
The event was not only a tasting of Dassai Blue and Japanese Dassai sakes, but also an extraordinary educational journey through the history of this centuries-old beverage—from its origins to the development and expansion of its market in the United States, as well as the entire process involved in its artisanal and industrial production.
Dassai Blue is produced by the Japanese company Asahi Shuzo at a monumental brewery located in Hyde Park, New York. There, Hudson Valley water is combined with the highly prized Yamada Nishiki rice grown in Arkansas.
What makes this sake brand special is the extreme polishing of the rice, down to the very center of the grain. For the production of its flagship bottles, such as Dassai Blue Type 23 and the exclusive Beyond, the rice is polished down to 23% and 19%, respectively—levels of refinement that very few breweries in the world attempt.
It is a Junmai Daiginjo-style sake—the highest level of rice polishing—rooted in a purely Japanese tradition, yet born in the United States.
During the polishing process, the white, starchy core of the rice grain, known as the shinpaku, is exposed. The rice is then cooked and combined with water, yeast, and the emblematic koji mold. The koji converts the starch into sugar while, simultaneously, the yeast transforms the sugar into alcohol.
Sake is a subtle beverage, crafted like a poem, yet strong and penetrating like a sword—the duality of the samurai warrior. Water and rice, the earth’s most precious resources, are transformed into pure aroma: poetry of the land on a new agricultural frontier.
The people who led this extraordinary experience were Kazuhiro Sakurai, CEO of Dassai, and the event’s host, Guilherme “William” de Macedo. Through an informal and engaging conversation, they delighted us with stories about this beverage, a source of national pride in Japan.
It was the saga of sake, the transplantation of rice, and the New Frontier of Yamada Nishiki on American soil—a cultural intertwining that places the United States as the world’s second-largest sake producer after Japan.
305 Wines, an outstanding educational center in South Florida, offered us this remarkable tasting, thanks to the warm hospitality of its hosts, Alessandra Esteves and Guilherme de Macedo. It was an exploration of a beverage that is water and poetry born of ancient feudal lands, and of the regeneration of American agriculture through the new frontier of Dassai Blue.
A true delight for the senses.
Kampai!
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