Abekan

• Abekan Shuzo Co. Ltd., Miyagi
• Junmai Ginjyo, Sake Rice Unknown

http://www.abekan.com/index.html

This is typical “Summer” sake which many Japanese sake breweries are recently launching in summer season. It would be good sales strategy to line up “seasonal” products to stimulate slumping demand in summer. In my opinion, however, summer sakes from various breweries are generally missing something. It is understandable that people want to enjoy cool, sharp, and dry sakes in hot and wet environment. But to make sakes so the goodies which is inherent with sake itself are sacrificed. More specifically, the natural sweetness from rice grain is killed to make “summer” sake. To be candid, I prefer regular sakes to summer versions.

Like all the examples, this Abekan “summer” special loses the goodies of sake. Even no name of rice used to brew this sake is disclosed. The bottle is pretty fancy as you see. You will find goldfishes through the transparent bottle from the back The bottle is well designed enough to provides you with hot summer mood. OK, fine. The taste of sake itself however is absolutely unacceptable from the start. Strong sour taste at the first sip disappoints me very much. The sourness is getting less as the time lapses. Unfortunately however the total quality level, except for the bottle design, can not justify the price I pay. The retail price after tax is $16.00.