Futsushu — tasting notes & food pairings

Futsushu

Futsushu — literally "ordinary sake" — is the everyday, non-premium base tier of Japanese sake and by far the most-drunk kind, accounting for something like seventy percent of all the sake made in Japan. It is the "table sake" that fills the big bottles and boxes on the supermarket shelf and the flasks warmed at the izakaya and the family table: brewed from the same rice, water, koji and yeast as its premium cousins, but made to no special-designation rule. Unlike the tokutei meishoshu grades (junmai, honjozo, ginjo and daiginjo), futsushu has no minimum rice-polishing requirement and may carry a much larger, unrestricted addition of distilled brewer's alcohol, and often a small amount of sugar or acid for balance. At around 15 to 16 percent alcohol it is a mild, unpretentious, mass-market sake — soft and grain-sweet, sometimes a touch rough or sharp — built to be inexpensive, drunk young and, very often, served warm as kan.

Balanced15.5% ABV

Clear and pale gold, futsushu is the plain everyday face of sake: light to medium in body, soft and grain-sweet, and sometimes a touch rough or sharp from its larger, cheaper alcohol addition and less-milled rice. Expect soft steamed-rice and cereal notes, a faint banana ester, a mild savoury rice umami and a little alcoholic warmth, finishing short and dry to off-dry. Around 15 to 16 percent alcohol, it is the archetypal inexpensive table sake — made to drink young and fresh and to warm (kan): a lukewarm nurukan or hot atsukan cup rounds its edges and lifts its grain-sweet aroma beside grilled, simmered and salty izakaya fare, and it doubles as the everyday cooking sake of the Japanese kitchen.