Be My Valentine: Pairing Sake and KitKats

Hello everybody and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America's very first sake podcast and I am your host, John Puma. Uh, you may see some of my adventures over on the Sake Notes, but I'm also the administrator at the internet sake discord and the lead mod at Reddits r slash sake community

and I'm your host, Timothy Sullivan. I'm a Sake Samurai. I'm a sake educator, as well as the founder of the Urban Sake website. And every week John and I will be here tasting and chatting about all things sake and doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.

So Tim, what's going on this week,

you know, John, I think love is in the air It's mid-February. You know what that means,

It means that the price of flowers is greatly inflated

well it is Valentine's Day coming up.

Yes, that

that day. We all love to hate

Yeah, I mean, I don't, I honestly, I don't dislike it. I just, it's like so transparently like a, a fake commercial thing, but at the same time, it's nice to be able to tell your loved ones that you love them.

Yeah, it's great. Have you ever been in Japan for Valentine's Day?

Actually, Tim, once, one time I happened to be, uh, in Japan on February the 14th, uh, in 2020.

Alright. Well you, you probably know then that Valentine's Day in Japan is a little different than it is here. do you wanna explain. What you understand about Valentine's Day in Japan versus here?

yes. Yes. Well, I had heard that it was a bit different. I didn't really experience the difference being that I was there with my wife, so I didn't have, Japanese women, giving me the gift of chocolate, which is apparently the vibe there.

It's more than a vibe. It's a rule.

It's a rule. Oh my goodness. yeah. So, my understanding though is that there's a couple of different ways this can go down, depending on the woman's relationship with you. How in depth is your knowledge of this sort of thing?

I lived in Japan a few different times, and I was there for Valentine's Day and I was the recipient of. Chocolate. The, the key difference between Japan and the US is on February 14th. In Japan, women are expected to give men chocolate, which is kind of different from the way we do things here uh, so it, that's a little bit of a difference that women are supposed to be gifting on Valentine's Day, but the men do not get off Scott free. Right.

No, no, I don't. I've, I've heard, I've heard of this

Yeah, they have a day in March, March 14th, one month later called White Day, and men are expected to reciprocate. And anyone who gave them chocolate, they have to give chocolate back.

Oh, and it's specifically the people who gave you chocolate.

Yes. If you don't reciprocate, that's a kind of a dis That is, that is not, not nice.

that's, messed up. I guess it's kind of like a consolidated version of the thing they did in grade school where you'd give Valentine's to the other people in your class, and sometimes they didn't give you one back. And I was like, oh, that

Hurtful

Hurtful. Yes. It, it really is. It's rough. It's rough to be left out,

there's different grades of giving for women on Valentine's Day. The most common, and I think the most hated is called Giri. Most Hated. Yes, it's called giri Choco,

giri choco. Oh, okay. So, so Choco I'm assuming is the chocolate. What's the giri

giri means obligation. So it's, it's an obligation. Chocolate. This is, this is chocolate that women would give to their bosses, male friends, anyone. They feel kind of obligated to work colleagues, and it's not from the heart, so to speak.

no, it doesn't sound like it would be anything with obligation in it. Is, is inherently not heart related.

Yeah. Then there's honmei, honmei choco, which is, that's kind of true love chocolate. That's kind of chocolates that are often handmade. And they're for your significant other boyfriend, husband.

handmade,

That's a big

trend so, if you give your significant other, perhaps obligation, chocolate level chocolate, that's sort of a dis also

I don't know. We're really getting in the weeds here. uh, there's also tomo, choco tomo. tomodachi means friends. So if you want to give your female friend chocolate as as just a nice gift you can do. Tomo, Choco. So that's between friends.

Oh,

Yeah, and I was actually the recipient of giri Choco when I lived in Japan,

Oh wow.

I lived in rural Japan. This is when I was staying in yamaguchi, and I went to the same 7-Eleven almost daily. It was the only place within walking distance for me to buy food, I lived there for a month and I was in this

We're gonna to dig into that in another episode. Tim, I needed to know more about you living off of 7-Eleven Food.

it was not the best, but, uh, I was going there every day, every day, every day. And then on February 14th, I was checking out with my food, and the female convenience store worker, probably 20 years old, handed me a Valentine's Day chocolate. And I thought it was so sweet and, uh, The thing is, I left before March 14th, so I could not reciprocate, so she's probably still mad about it.

So did you know about the custom ahead of time or were like when she handed you this chocolate were you were like, Hey, wait a minute, lady, I'm spoken for

No, I did not know about the custom. I had no idea what was going on, why she was giving me chocolate, but it was definitely giri Choco for sure. Obligation chocolate. I was probably their best customer. Yeah. So, uh,

well, you know,

so when I think of Valentine's Day in Japan, I always think of that rural Yamaguchi seven 11

So that's, that's all of them though. We've got, we've got our giri for. For the obligation

Chocolate

we got our

honmei

for the, um, significant other, uh, we've got the tomo, for your tomos For your friends. And is that it?

Well, there's one more, which is my favorite.

Oh, okay. I'm ready.

jibun choko, and that's buying chocolate For yourself,

Oh, still it's, it's Treat Yourself

Treat. Treat yourself

All right. That sounds like fun. I, I like, I like treating my, I, I do that when it's not Valentine's Day

Me too. It's pretty much every day for me.

that?

Every every day is a jibun, Choco for me Now there there is a

lots of things.

so there is a particular kind of chocolate in Japan that is very popular that a lot of people associate with Japans. When you think of Japan, you think of. You think of Sumo, you think of Hello Kitty and what else?

uh, kit kats.

Kit. kats. That's

I feel like, I feel like the answer was supposed to be kit kats. I had other things, but I was kinda like, wait a minute. Clearly this is a setup. No.

The answer is not Ninja. It's Kit kats.

uh, But yeah, no, uh, kit kats are, bizarrely huge there, I wanna say.

Oh my God. You see them everywhere. And the thing is, the flavors are so crazy, aren't they?

I mean, you know, for us, I, I imagine for them these are completely normal. But yeah, I, I think that, they are interesting flavors. I wanna say a few years ago, I don't think they do it anymore, but a few years ago there were, there were a couple of sake flavors, which was a lot of fun. honestly, they tasted like white chocolate, but they smell like sake, which, you know, kind of gets you, gets you in the mood,

Yeah. Their sake flavored kit Kat came out in 2016 and I was desperate to get my hands on them. I remember I went on a trip to Japan and I was like, oh my gosh, I have to try these. And you're right, they tasted like chemically white chocolate, but they had 0.8% alcohol in them. So there was just like a little bit of alcohol and they, they were reminiscent of sake, wouldn't you say?

Yeah. Especially that aroma was like, it was such a really good, like ginjo aroma. You open up the little package, you're like, whoa, this doesn't belong in chocolate. I don't understand It was really interesting. It was fun. but yeah, and then you taste it. It's just like, no, this is kind of white chocolate.

Yeah. So they have all these wild varieties of flavors. And do you know why Kit Kats became so popular? It's kind of like they won the marketing lottery in Japan.

um, that sounds good, but how, how did they win the marketing lottery?

Well, there's this, there's a, a set phrase in Japanese "kitto katsu" it kind of sounds like

kiito-katto" Yes. and

Kitto Katsu Means you will surely win. And it's a, it's a saying of encouragement that you can give to someone. And it's often used when people are gonna be taking exams. So what happened is people started sending Kit kats to their friends and people taking exams, whether it was college entrance exams or different things like that.

Uh,

which sounds like

Well, it, it, I, when you said like I was thinking of like katsu, like, like katsu curry or or like, you know, chicken katsu, pork katsu. Uh, so that's interesting and, and very fortuitous for the very fortuitous nestle

Yes.

a happy coincidence that I'm sure has worked out nicely for them.

Yes. Well, for today, John, will you be my Valentine?

For the moment. Yes. I think, I think, and I don't think, uh, this is, this is, uh, Tomo Choko. This is not giri-choco

this is Tomo Choco.

Yes, definitely Tomo. Choco.

So I received a wonderful selection of Off the Wall Kit kat Flavors from my sister and I shared some with John. So John and I both have a selection of crazy kit kats in front of us and for Valentine's Day to celebrate the spirit of Tomo Choko We're going to be tasting crazy kit kats along with our sake.

when I said I wanted to get more into pairing, this is not what I had in mind.

this is not part of your resolution,

No, I don't think so. I mean, it's fun. We're gonna have a good time with it, but, but this is gonna be a little weird, I think. I think it's gonna be a little funky.

You and I both picked different sakes. To use in our KitKat pairing

Mm-hmm. Yes. our kit kat

so before we open any of the KitKats, why don't we introduce our sakes? Um, you can tell me what you've selected and let's taste them on their own first before we do any pairing. How about that?

Sure. So since, uh, in my mind, I think having kit kats and sake is a little funky. A little, a little, little out there, a little different. I decided to, uh, use a sake that is itself quite a bit funky. it is from our friends over at Kinoshita Shuzo over in Kyoto, they make the Tamagawa brand of, of ambient house yeast sakes. So lots of funky stuff. And this one is called, Tamagawa Time Machine. it is classified as a Junmai, although you often see it, in big letters.

So you're just, you're just rolling the dice here,

I'm roll. Yes, exactly. I, I go big or go home,

Alright. Well I picked out what I thought was a valentinesy kind of sake. I'm gonna go with the Amabuki brand and we've had them on our show before. They specialize in flower yeast or hana kobo. And the one that I've picked out for today is Jin No Kurenai Junmai that is often called the Pink Lady It's again, it's from Amabuki Shuzo, and it is a Junmai grade sake polished down to 55%, and they're using a rice that is Akamai or one of these black or red rices, the ancient grains.

Okay.

we are again in Saga Prefecture on Kyushu Island. The flower yeast that they use is the strawberry flower yeast acidity of 1.6 and the SMVs plus two. So this has a real tart sweet thing going on that's really fun. And the most amazing thing about the sake I picked is that. Saga no Hana rice. That red rice gives it a rose color, so it's very apropo for Valentine's Day

yeah, that's, that is some Valentine's Day looking sake.

Okay, well let's get these sakes in the glass and taste them on their own first before we get to our pairing.

Sure thing. so I've got my time machine in the glass and, uh, let's see. It is, very caramel. That is, that is the word. It looks like liquid caramel

Yeah, it looks very syrupy

Oh, yes, it is. It looks almost like whiskey, like it's very very, very dark. and then for aroma. Hmm. Wow. There is a little bit of that, that whiskey nose that I do like on, on these older sakes and a lot of that, caramel sweetness that's in there. Cocoa, this might go well with some of the more chocolatey Kit Kats with that nose. And now I'm gonna give it a little bit of a taste. Hmm. Yeah. This is a very dessert sake. Sake. And I would love to pour this over some ice cream one day.

All right. Well, I have the Pink Lady, the Amabuki Gin no Kurenai Junmai, let's give that a smell. Hmm. It has a little bit of a fruity aroma to it, a little bit of sharpness there, but just, um, brightness and,

Hmm.

um, a smell like watermelon, a little bit like watermelon. So

that's, that's a good flavor to have in a

sake it's a really interesting aromatic. I'm gonna give it a taste now. Hmm. It's really delicious. It has kind of a sweet, tart thing going on, so there's sweetness upfront and it finishes with some acidity and a little bit of tartness. Really engaging, but kind of a different overall mouthfeel and profile from a standard amabuki sake. So the unique rice that they're using really comes across on the palate and it kind of doesn't compute with other flavors from standard sake rices.

so, I saw this and I needed to immediately pick it out. this is the, KitKat, which gets, is getting translated in Google as adult sweetness,

adult sweetness.

Now, uh, this is the white. So, uh, it's, I'm assuming it's gonna be a white chocolate, I'm assuming adult sweetness is probably a little bit less sweet. It's probably a little bit more, like, a little more mellow, probably a little more, maybe a little more coco. I don't know. We're gonna find out. This is, this is what pops into my head. So when I open it up, it is in fact white chocolate. But there is, some bits. Chunks of something in the chocolates and dark colored chunks in the chocolate.

Okay. John, I was curious about the sweetness for adults. And this is a line of Kit Kats geared towards adults, and the one you have is white chocolate with finely crushed black biscuits or cookies. creamy white chocolate, and it's made with milk from Hokkaido Japan.

Oh, that's lovely. And so those chunks then are the cookie. Oh my God. This is why I love this so much. It's really good.

Well, how is it, how is it pairing with the sake

Well, we're gonna find out in a moment. Let's see. Well, the sake mellows out the kit cat even more because the sake is so big. but then when I go back to the sake, it's got a whole new level of excitement to it, this is a good pairing. This is

Yay,

I am a fan of this pairing.

All right.

This is an a plus pairing for me, Tim we need to find out what you've got

So adult sweetness,

Yeah. All right. Sorry. Sorry. Adult sweetness of the white white chocolate

a plus.

A plus with with tamagawa time machine.

right.

Mm

Okay. I'm looking at my selection. and I have certain one that my attention is drawn to, and I have Kit Kat that is flan flavored,

Flan. Okay.

Flan is like, you know, a caramel pudding

Yeah. Yeah.

and I like flan, so I'm gonna try flan with the amabuki.

right,

Okay. Opening up. It looks very much like white chocolate. Oh my gosh. It smells like caramel flan, like,

Oh, wow. Really

my gosh,

Wow. So, so kind of like with the sake, they're nailing the

the aroma is on point.

Hmm, that's great.

So now we're gonna taste it. Hmm

Mm-hmm. what do you think?

hmm. I'm getting more caramel than flan, but.

okay.

But it tastes very good. I just can't escape the kind of chemically overtones to it. it. doesn't taste like natural flan. It tastes a little, little bit like white chocolate and caramel, and it's very good, but it tastes a little chemically. But we're gonna pair it with our rose sake here. Let me give it a sip.

I'm very curious how this is gonna go down,

Hm. Not the best pairing I've ever had.

Oh, so you wanna give this one a grade?

Maybe a B minus

Alright, a B minus. Now what? What impact did the sake have on the KitKat and vice versa?

Yeah. The kit cat is so, so sweet

Hmm.

It, it drained all the sweetness out of the sake and made it taste a little sharp. So the alcohol really came forward a little more. Um, so this wasn't an A+ pairing flan, kit, kat, and the Yeah, but we're gonna do another round,

Yeah, I, I, got a feeling the flan would, would go really well with this Tamagwa though,

yes. I think the flan would go really well with yours. So, uh, So, John, back to you. We should do another one. This is too much

fun I should, I should. So, I'm gonna go a little bit crazy here, I think. and I'm going to have the apple cinnamon. I think this is gonna be something that of my comfort zone,

guess what?

you have an apple cinnamon

cinnamon too.

Oh. This is how we're gonna go. We're gonna both do the apple cinnamon and pair a sakes.

we can't pass up the opportunity if we both have it so.

so let's, let's get the, let's get this apple cinnamon opened up and put it in the glass. Wait a minute. No, we don't put this in the glass. All right, so, whoa. All right. So I got it open and the first thing I got assaulted with was the aroma of cinnamon and apples.

Oh my

it's it's also like,

It smells like a Yankee

so, it's like pow

It smells like a Yankee candle.

it does.

my God, that's so

strong It is. Um, it's like kind of off white, kind of

Yeah, it's like a grayish purpleish gray color.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so let's, uh, let's get this,

Okay.

let's get a bite of.

Hmm.

You know, tim,

not bad

this kind of tastes like apple and cinnamon the finish is, the cinnamon really settles into that finish. I was, I am very impressed by this. I'm surprised that I

like this. It has really distinct apple pie vibes, doesn't it?

Yeah, as long as you like a lot of cinnamon in your apple pie but there's a lot of ci I do like cinnamon, so this is like a, it's saving it for me cause I'm not a big apple

this is an apple pie that fell into the cinnamon bowl and

Mm. If, if I were making an apple pie, that's what I would do. So this works out really nicely. Um, so now let's let's pair it with our respective sakes.

Yes. Hmm. You know, for me it actually is okay, because this is not as sweet. This apple cinnamon is more of a spicy flavor, and it brings out the subtle sweetness that's in my sake, and it balances quite well actually. So I'm much more pleased with this than the flan. How about you?

Well, unfortunately, I think I've got the B minus, B plus pairing this time. It, it's, it's not bad. It works, but it doesn't. Sing like the, that last one, the, the adult Sweetness White. It was just, it felt like it was made for the sake. It was so perfect. And this, I think the spice really just didn't, it just doesn't go well. The cinnamon clashes a bit with the, the caramel and the cocoa of the time machine. they're not in sync. Uh, again, they're not bad together. It's just not, not.

Okay, John. Well, I'm gonna do one more here. I have a marugoto kakao This is a 72% Kakao, and I love chocolate so much. So I'm gonna open this up and see. Ooh,

Oh.

okay, so it's a dark chocolate. Oh my gosh. It smells like when you're making chocolate chip cookies and you have those semi sweet or dark chocolate chips. It smells like dark chocolate. So this is for dark chocolate lovers. I think this would pair fantastically with your sake, but I'm gonna give it a

taste yeah, it's getting a little hot in here, Tim. That sounds really good.

Hmm. Okay. It tastes just like a 73% cacao chocolate bar from a chocolate shop, so

Oh

good

But with, but with like the wafers

wafers in the middle.

Oh, that's, that sounds really good.

Hmm. It pairs really well with this sake.

Fantastic. I was a little worried. I thought that maybe it would be more something that would go with mine, but, uh, I'm glad to hear

I think it's the, it's the, sorry. It's It's the, um, it's the lack of sweetness. I think the ones that are not as sweet pair really well with this sake. The, the first one I had, the flan that was overly sugary. It just didn't blend well. But this is a bitter style semi sweet or you know, dark chocolate and. That bitterness brings out the sweetness in my sake, and balances it really well.

Nice. Oh, this is gonna lead to a spinoff show. Tim, where are gonna We doing kit kat Revolution

oh, I did read that there were over 300 flavors of Kit Kat in Japan.

I believe it

too.

hundred percent

So. So what did you think, does this leave you feeling hopeful about Valentine's Day?

I in Japan, you mean? Um, I, if I get to collect a bunch of different KitKats, I'm going to Japan every February. ,uh, I have to say, like, my, my takeaway from this has been number one, I really enjoy the time machine a lot more than I thought I would. And number two. Adult sweetness.

I told Sweetness yes.

Adult sweetness is my jam, apparently. so good. It was fantastic. And you know what, the, by itself, the Apple and Cinnamon kit kat was much better than I thought it was gonna be. I was a little trepidatious about that one, but, uh, but that was really, really tasty. But the adult sweetness of the King

Yeah. My takeaway is that some flavors, I think, to achieve some strange, unusual flavors in these candies, they have to resort to chemicals and sometimes they do taste chemically. But other ones tasted very pure and very much like what they were. The cinnamon was really cinnamon and apple and didn't really taste that chemically to me.

Mm. Yeah, I, I think like, you know, it's with all these different flavors, you're gonna have some situations where they get to it real naturally and real easily. And other times when they have to, they have to cheat a little bit. but it worked out like these are, you know, the, the ones we tasted tonight, I think worked out pretty well.

Yeah, this was a lot of fun. And I, I know you have a few extra flavors. What are the other, what are some of the other flavors you have there that we're

All right, so I had shortlisted a few, and not necessarily because I was really excited about them. There is one I'm very excited about that I'm holding for myself, but I'll tell you about that in a minute. I took out the chocolate orange flavor. I loathe chocolate covered oranges. So I figured I would take out the kick at and just confront my, fears but then ended up going a different route. Uh, we got pumpkin pie

Mm-hmm.

and cheesecake. Those are also on my, on my shortlist. But the one I'm saving for myself is called For coffee break. And it's meant to be paired with coffee. tomorrow I'm going to have this with my morning coffee and hopefully be a very smiley, happy morning person. Normally, I'm not a very happy morning person.

That's good. Well, I'm glad you have a few extra to string into the, to your other beverages as well, outside

yes. yes. And and Tim, thank you so much for, for giving me these, this was, uh, very, very nice of you. Your, your, tomo Choco, is very much

apprecitated Thank you so much. All right. Well, John, this was so much fun. Who doesn't love Kit Kat? Who doesn't love sake? This is a, this is a win-win proposition here. This show

two. The two great tastes that sometimes tastes great together.

Yes, absolutely. So great to taste with you and I also want to say hello and thank you to our patrons. If you'd like to support, our show, you can visit our patreon Patreon.com/SakeRevolution

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Yes.

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So Without any further ado, please grab a Kit Kat Uh, remember to pair your Kit Kats with sake and come pie.