By Bruce Rutledge

Every few decades since the early Meiji Era, Americans have embraced some aspect of Japanese culture. Around the turn of the century, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and others fell in love with Japan’s woodblock prints. After World War II, Zen dazzled the American intelligentsia (Japan scholar Donald Keene relates that a children’s ABC book in the 50s ended with “Z is for zen”). In the 1990s, anime and manga grabbed the fascination of American youth because of its unique look and complex storylines. Today, in the 2010s, there are signs that the next big thing from Japan is saké, a complex brew that has begun to fascinate American gourmands.
The rise in popularity of saké has been steady over the past decade or so, largely thanks to pioneers such as John Gauntner, a saké evangelist who has trained a new breed of saké sommeliers and connoisseurs, and Seattle’s own Johnnie and Taiko Stroud, who opened one of the country’s only saké shops and tasting bars in Pioneer Square, Saké Nomi, several years ago.
A sign in the stylish Saké Nomi gives a hint of how far saké has come in the US. It says, “Saké is not another name for rocket fuel.” Brian Clark of Uwajimaya’s Bellevue branch used the same phrase — “rocket fuel” — to describe what he thought of saké before he moved to Kobe and started drinking some of the good stuff. Now he gives advice to foodies and oenophiles looking to get into saké. “It’s the next big thing,” he says. In fact, he says he has to remind people not to vilify warm saké. “There’s literally a saké for everyone and every budget.”
Today, some of the best saké in the world is finding its way onto American menus. Gourmands know the difference between a daiginjo and a junmai (see the opposite page  for an explanation). Adventurous chefs and sommeliers are beginning to pair sakés with non-Japanese fare, including cheese, chocolate and grilled salmon.
“Saké is, in truth, incredibly versatile,” Gauntner writes in an email from Japan. “Once you take out the obvious mismatches like excessively spicy, rich or heavy food, there is a plethora of great pairings possible with Western food.”
The dedication taken to brew good saké is the stuff of lore. Kiyoaki Kojima of Orcas Distibuting Ltd. recalls visiting a 73-year-old brewer in Japan who was sleeping next to his brew, waking every two hours to tend to it as it fermented. When Kojima asked him if he used an alarm clock, he replied, “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you hear it calling you.”
Gauntner points out how complex the brewing process is: “Wine-making is chemically a simple fermentation, as there is sugar in the grape juice that the yeast converts to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Saké is brewed like a beer, which means the starch must first be converted to sugar. In saké brewing, that is done using koji mold (aspergillus oryzae) and saké is the only beverage in the world where starch-to-sugar and sugar-to-alcohol take place at the same time in the same tank.This makes it massively complex and a balancing act.”
Toshi Kojima, Kiyoaki’s brother, says his company sees great promise for saké in Seattle.”The sales volume is not as big as New York or California, but at the same time the Seattle market is very international and very curious ... There’s a culture of trying something new, making something better, being more open-minded and experimental.”