Sake Vessel Series: Edo Kiriko

Hello, you there at home and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America's First Sake podcast and I am one of your intrepid hosts. My name is John Puma. I am from the Sake Notes, and I'm also the administrator over at the Internet Sake Discord, as well as 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.

Hello, Tim.

Hey John. How you doing?

I am doing well. How about you?

Doing great.

That is good. We like to hear that. Like when I, I I, I worry about the day when I'm like, Tim, welcome to the show. How you doing? And you're like,

life sucks.

Like, you're like, uh, let's go straight to the tasting. No

Well, we have something special in store for our listeners today. We're going back to a series that I love. We are going to be trying a new sake vessel.

Yes, yes, yes. we've had our, our series on sake vessels here for a, for a, a bit of time now. We've had, we've gone through quite a few, uh, and what we've been doing with all of them, just to bring everybody up to speed here, is that we'll introduce a sake vessel that, uh, usually has some, some really interesting traditional ties to Japan and to sake, and then we will. Talk a little bit about the history behind that.

Yes. what are some of the other vessels we've spoken about to date? We did the sakazuki right?

Yes. Yes, we did. We did.

yeah.

Not a lot of sake in that one, Tim, I want to tell you, and somehow the saucer did not capture the aroma of the sake

What else do we have?

we, we've of always a fan favorite. We've had the masu.

Oh, yes, the masu

That's always, I think that that is, uh, there's, there's so much. Uh, I don't want to use the word, uh, baggage with the Masu but there kind of is a lot of baggage with the masu. A lot of people, they know a little bit about the masu and so it was fun to be able to talk a lot about the Masu.

And we did the kikichoko, the snake eye.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's, that's one with a lot of, a lot of history and a lot of, uh, a lot of weight behind it. I wanna say. you know, we talked about just like the concept of regular ochoko. Just lots of, you know, there's, there's a lot out there.

Yeah. But if you thought we reached the end of the vessel series, you are wrong,

No,

There's always more. So what are we gonna talk about today?

Well, today we are gonna be talking about the kiriko.

Kiriko.

Yes, the Kiriko Now, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something here, uh, really quickly and it gets something out of the way, and that is, up until recently, I never owned my very own, uh, kiriko.

you don't say

Yeah. I do say as a matter of fact, and, I had seen them and I had, drunk sake out of them at, very nice bars in the past. Um, but I'd never actually owned one, and that is until this past holiday.

Hmm.

Uh, uh, very, very good friend Timothy Sullivan, gifted a pair to Myshell and I.

Yes. We, you and I were talking in our planning sessions about upcoming episodes we want to do in the vessel series, and you mentioned that, you know, you didn't have a kiriko glass on hand, so I thought it would make a nice holiday gift and, uh, yeah. So, uh, I hope you like it and we're gonna put it to the test today.

We are, and, and in full disclosure, I have actually not had any sake out of this particular kiriko yet,

All right.

this is, this is the, the maiden voyage of, of the gift that you gave us. So I'm very excited to see how it's gonna go. No pressure

No pressure. All right. Well, for our listeners, we should probably define what kirkiko is and a little bit about the history too. So kirkiko just means cut glass. So if you've ever had a lead crystal cut glass goblet in your hand, this is like the Japanese version of cut glass.

Mm-hmm.

but there are some differences and some very interesting history to kirkiko. first thing we gotta get out of the way is that kirkiko, even today, is viewed as a luxury good in Japan. Like these are not everyday drinking glasses. These are something that are, I think, reserved for really special occasions. Basically, you're not gonna see them in every izakaya, right?

No, no, no. It's something that I only see at, generally higher end izakayas, I think are where you're gonna see this kind of thing.

Yes, I just had a birthday dinner Scott took me out to, I'm gonna shout out Tsukimi restaurant here in New York. They do a absolutely delicious one Michelin star kaiseki, and we got several different types of sake and they served us sake in beautiful. kirkiko cut lead crystal glasses and it really adds to the experience and it really makes you feel more elegant.

That's, yes. I I think that in my history, uh, when I've experienced these, it's been situations where they've had them up on the shelf and they've allowed, in my cases, they've allowed us to kind of like choose which one we wanted. They had a whole selection of them that was very nice.

I love that. Now if you're listening and you're having a hard time picturing the kirkiko glasses, be sure to just hop over to SakeRevolution.com. Check out our show notes. We're gonna have some great pictures of different kirkiko glasses and you can see what John's drinking out of what I'm drinking out of, and some very. Uh, beautiful examples of this kirkiko cut Glass. And John, I also wanted to give you a little bit of the history of kiriko.

T Tim, this is a, this is a reoccurring theme in our vessel series, is things that John thinks are ancient in some way or another are never, or rarely, quite as ancient as they seem.

yes there. There was glass in long ago, imported from China centuries ago, but it was so rare and so expensive that really only the true elites of society would use it. The cut glass that we understand cut crystal, that we understand as modern cut glass came to Japan with the initial trade with the west, and this really started to happen uh, in the Edo period, which is 1603 to 1868. And really in the 19th century, kirkiko cut glass began to blossom in two areas of Japan.

Hmm hmm. Okay.

So I mentioned. There's two areas where this cut glass really emerged. Edo, which is modern day, Tokyo and Satsuma, modern day Kagoshima. And these two types of glass are differentiated, so you call it. Edo-Kiriko for cut glass from the Tokyo area or Satsuma-kiriko for cut glass from the Kagoshima area. So they're gonna have a regionality to them too.

well that's interesting. That's, that's very interesting.

One interesting thing that I, I read was that when the first cut Crystal Glass, the first Edo-kiriko was made, it was actually clear in color.

Oh, so just, just literally cut glass?

cut crystal.

Mm-hmm.

Other decoration than the cuts themselves. But in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, influence from the west, brought in the more modern and recognizable colors that we now associate with kirkiko Cut Sake glasses. And we have a representation of both of the primary colors. your glass is a kind of this royal blue color.

Mm-hmm.

My glass is like a ruby red color.

Mm. the contrast is, is very interesting. you know, yours is very, is quite, quite red, and mine has a very, very lovely, very deep blue to it.

Yeah, and just quickly, what, what is so indicative of Kiriko cut glass is that it's two layers of glass. The colors on the outside, clear glasses on the inside, and when you cut away at the color, you expose clear glass beneath that, and that's how you create the design is contrasting the color. Either ruby red or royal blue in your case. And the clear glass. So you make the designs by basically cutting away the color and exposing clear glass beneath that.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's like dime, diamond shapes

yeah, yeah, yeah, the, the blue color is only on the center, four of each set. It looks great. It looks really nice.

Yeah. And your shape is more of a larger cup, right?

Right. Whereas yours looks a little bit more like, um, like a, almost like a tulip glass.

Yeah. Or like a shot, larger shot glass kind of

Sure, sure. Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't flare out as much as a tulip does, but

Yeah.

but there's a, there's a subtle, uh, and mine has a too, like where you get to the top, it kind of like blooms a little bit to kind of let that, probably let that aroma out.

Yeah, there's a little curved edge to the top. Uh, I think it helps the sake to roll on the palate very easily and helps the aroma get out to your noses. Love that.

Hmm.

So they're very beautiful. Primarily, uh, the colors you see are royal blue and this ruby red. and they have all these intricate cut designs and there were pages and pages you can find online that describe the names and the meanings of all the different cuts. And we're not gonna get into that on the show today.

Oh, we could, we could do a two hour show about this, right?

Yeah, yours has that beautiful kind of diamond shape pattern. Mine has, I think, a pattern that represents, um, rice plants or it has like, Uh, Palm frond kind of look to it and

yours is very ornate. Yeah.

and, uh, wedges cut off the bottom. So there's like a scalloped color along the, the bottom edge of it. It's really beautiful, solid red along the top, the lip of the glass So as we always do, We're gonna be putting the vessel, today's vessel Edo-kiriko. We're gonna be putting this up against our tried and true stemmed wine glass, aren't we?

We are, we are. And, and I, based on the look of this glass, I think that this is gonna fare a lot better than some of our other, our other contestants, in the past.

Yeah, when, when we evaluate this one, I think we should add in like the vibes factor, like how it makes us feel holding a fancy glass, right?

Yes, perhaps, perhaps. and since we're gonna be drinking out of this very nice glass, uh, we needed to select a very nice sake to go along with it. And, so today we've got the Nagurayama Gekkyu. Uh, and this is a Junmai, uh, and in the west we call this one Crescent Moon.

Hmm.

Yeah. Uh, Nagurayama is, uh, located over in Fukushima, and this sake is utilizing a rice variety that I'm not overwhelmingly familiar with. Yume no Kaori, which I think is like dreams of fragrance or dreams of aroma. I think or, or maybe the aroma of dreams, I might have it backwards. The polishing ratio of that yume no Kaori is 55%. the alcohol percentage is 15%.

I'll be the judge of that wisp.

yeah. Okay. Excellent. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, the uh, Nagurayama Brewing Company is, from Fukushima Prefecture in the, Aizu region. They were founded in 1918. But under a different, uh, brand name. It was, uh, Take Masamune back then. And then in 1937, they changed it to Nagurayama, to, um, invoke the name of, Mount, Nagura, which was nearby. And it wasn't until 1973 that they started to make premium sake. So like ginjo and junmai, that kind of thing.

Cool. Well that sounds great. I've never had this sake before. so I'm really excited.

Yeah. I'm not sure if I've ever had it before either. This is interesting. you know, It's a little rare that we both encounter our sake that we haven't had before.

That's right. And we're always looking at our past shows. We want to try new things and not repeat sakes too often, uh, but as today is the day This is like a, unboxing video for you and me where we're gonna get the

unboxing audio though,

unboxing audio. Okay. Let's get this open. And in the glass,

Excellent. Let's do it. Well, all right, we've got two count them, two glasses of sake poured

I smell a wisp of aroma of something.

a wisp, something.

Yes. Okay. So John, let's, let's grab this beautiful kirkiko first

All right. Uh, I will say the, the kiriko, the, one of the things I'm really noticing from this, and I picked up on it a little bit earlier as well, it's very light.

hmm.

Like, you know, you kind of like, You draw an unconscious connection between, what a glass should weigh or how it should feel in your hand with sake in it, and it feels very, very light, which, you know, I think when a glass is very light, you get that, that you associate that in your mind with, with something very premium, something very, uh, purposeful.

Excellent. Yeah, mine's not that heavy either, actually. Yeah. Alright, well let's give it a smell.

All right.

Hm.

That's nice.

What do you think

Well, I'm not getting a ton. Uh, it, it kind of dissipates as soon as I. Or very soon after I swirl it cuz I can get a little bit of a swirl going on with this. It's tricky but I I didn't pour that much so I can get some swirl. And you know, we should remind people at home that even though Tim and I are both using uh, kiriko glass today, they do have very different shapes. Mine is a much wider mouth, you know, shorter glass with a wider mouth to it. And Tim's is a much taller, narrower vessel.

I'm getting a very limited aroma too, but I do smell something that has a hint of ricey-ness to it, like very much a Junmai type of aroma. Not fruity for me.

No. I get a sweetness though. Like, like there is, I get that little bit of rice when it comes. It's like a little bit of rice, a little bit sweetness to it. You've, you've made mention of, of like, um, sweet rice, like almost like a, like, almost like a mochi. Yeah. In the past. That's what I, that's what I get out of this

Hmm. Yeah. If you wanted to extend it a little more, I think I get a little hint of like a marshmallow as well. Yeah. But it smells good

Yeah.

and very, very gentle. Very, very light. And we're gonna see if that lightness is because of the glass or because of the, the sake in a minute. But should we give it a taste?

Yes.

All right. Hmm.

Hmm,

That's good.

that is really nice there. You know, for a sake with a very low acidity, the acidity plays a little bit

Hmm. You know, I think there is a wisp of sweetness there. There is.

success.

There is truth in advertising. Hmm. Yeah, it has some, a little bit of a rice flavor. It has just a hint of savoriness as well. Um,

It is still, it's, it's pretty light, even though it ha, even though it's a junmai, it's pretty light. It has, it's has a nice clean taste to it.

Hmm. I find it a bit layered. There's a lot of interesting things going on, but it does have a very gentle touch to it.

Mm. Yes. Gentle. That's a really good word for this. I like that. I think this would be very, uh, at home with, uh, food. Um, I know people, people at home are like, yes, John all sake is at home with food. But, uh, this is especially, I think would go nicely. And, um, and there's still some room for just sipping this

Hmm.

like we are right now.

Yeah, I like the, I like the layers on the palate. There's some ricey-ness, there's a little bit of savoriness. There's that wisp of sweetness and. It plays together really well. It's not overpowering. I can imagine if you were having this with food, it would be a wonderful companion and not over extend itself or outshine anything, but just balance perfectly with, uh, a variety of cooked dishes. And, uh, it's, a really nice June grade sake, don't you think?

Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think of what I would want to have with it though. It's, and I want, I wouldn't wanna go anything. Nothing too crazy, you know? Uh, I don't think that this is, I don't think this is gonna necessarily stand up to your extremely heavy Western dishes that Well,

Right.

uh, it's, it is, it is very light still. So, um, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back to our, our tried and true. I want Yakitori with this.

Oh, I have something similar that I'm thinking of. Oyakodon do you know oyakodon? It's like chicken and chicken and eggs over rice.

Mm-hmm.

It's like in the same flavor family as Yakitori.

Yes. I, I see oyakodon at different, I've definitely seen that on menu at, at yakitori places as well. Yeah. Uh, I mean, they've got the chicken. And we can make a joke about the egg

Which came first? john

You see? You can, you can, you can reference the joke without making it, I think uh oh, clearly Anyway, um, we've got the other one of our vessels today.

we gotta be fair. We gotta be fair. We gotta try both

yeah, we're gonna do this. Fair. Um, so now I've got my wine glass and I'm very curious to see, uh, what's gonna happen when I. Go for the aroma first. So let's do it

I'm giving, I'm giving an aggressive swirl. Oh my gosh. It's very different.

It's so much more. Um, yeah. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. It, oh, it, it almost smells like a different sake. It's amazing. Don't you agree?

I'm, I'm still getting, uh, a lot of the ricey-ness but some of that sweetness is kind of

yes.

not present I'm, I'm getting a lot less of it.

hmm. For me, the, the aroma of something candied kind of rises up a little bit more.

Hmm.

I mentioned like there was maybe a wisp of some marshmallow aroma on the, the Kiriko glass. Here I'm getting more concentrated sweetness and a little bit more of that marshmallow, candied impression.

I am getting a little anise.

Anise. Oh

Yeah, that's, that's that, that the ricey-ness is still there. Felt the sweetness was a little bit reduced. And then that bit of, that like almost mintiness that, that, uh, that for me, I'm.

Hmm.

I'm referring to as anise. It's just the thing that's popping into my head the most.

Yeah. I think I would refer to what you're describing is like an herbaceous quality

Yes, totally.

but you do agree with me that the intensity of the aroma comes across stronger in the wine glass. Right.

Absolutely. Uh, I think I mentioned when I was, when I was sniffing this out of the kiriko, it was very much like I would get like a tiny wisp of aroma and then it's just gone. And if I swirl a little bit or you know, tried try to swirl a little bit without spilling anything, I get a little bit and then it's gone. it was a struggle really to capture the aroma. Whereas in the wine glass, this is a vessel.

for me, I just took a taste from the wine glass and the taste is not markedly different for me from either vessel. Tastes very, very similar.

The taste is similar. I think it's a little bit heavier. meaning, it's styled up a, a notch higher. The flavors are all there. Uh, I think I said that when I had it outta the kiriko, I felt it had a bit of a lighter quality. I feel like it's a little bit more present, a tiny bit less gentle

Yeah, it's uh, it's a really good sake. It's, uh, an approachable Junmai, wouldn't you say?

Absolutely.

Yeah. And if you're on the fence, like I hear there, so many people get into sake and they get so into like the fruit bombs and the, you know, super ultra Melon-y sakes, and they're just like, oh, I don't like anything too. rice-y this is like the gateway to, the rice-y land don't

the gateway Rice.

Yes.

I like that a lot. That's kinda and I think it's apt. I think it's actually very, um, I think it's very on the nose. It's very appropriate and it's, it nails it. This is in fact a great gateway. For people who a gateway, rice-y sake, for people who are afraid of rice-y sake,

Yes.

Yeah, I can see that. And, and sometimes I fall into that category. I, I've, I've, I've embraced it more over the years, but, uh, for a long time I was like, oh, I don't like rice sake.

Yeah. Yeah. They can be a little too bold sometimes, a little too grainy, but this walks that line perfectly. Like it's not fruity at all, but it's not off-putting with its ricey-ness. It's, it's overall mild and gentle like it's trying to be approachable, I think, and, and really easy drinking, but it does have that rice-y spin to it and that, that, I will say it again, that wisp of sweetness.

Towing the company line there too.

hook, line, and sinker. All right.

I will say, so for me, like it's, Junmai kind of on its way to, on its way to ginjo, but it doesn't, it avoids the fruit and it's allowed to stand on its own as this lighter expression of Junmai when that makes it a lot of fun. That makes it a really interesting sake that, that. I don't think there's a ton, uh, that we get over here. At least that really goes for this style. I think it's nice. I think it's like, you know, it's, it, it gets to stand on. So it gets to be a little novel.

Now I gotta ask you before we wind up here, what is the vibe, check drinking out of the kirkiko Glass? how do you feel? Because it's your first time drinking out of some very, very nice friend of yours gave you a kiriko glass and No.

very, very, uh, Very generous, apparently

No, no, no. So you got a kiriko glass. You're drinking out of it for the first time. What's the vibe check? How are you feeling? How does it feel in the hands?

the glass in the hand is wonderful. I love how light it is. I mentioned that earlier. I know that's like a weird thing to talk about, but I really like that about it. I also, um, you know, it feels good in the hand. It looks wonderful. and, from a taste standpoint, a little sad about the aroma situation, but I really thought the sake tasted fantastic out of the kiriko. Like it was really nice. It's, like I said, a little bit more gentle, but I kind of liked that aspect of it.

So if anyone is out there looking for a new type of sake glass to buy, keep your eyes out for edo-kiriko, because they're beautiful. They're a little bit on the pricey side sometimes, but they're something really wonderful and full of history that you can have at home and really enjoy good premium sake from.

Well, Tim, thank you again for the wonderful gift. I just wanna say that

my pleasure

Be out right out there and say that I'm gonna, I'm going to enjoy a lot of sake out of this cup. I have a feeling now, now that I've used it at home, the doors are open. I can have this whenever

Well John, it was so great to taste with you another vessel episode in the books.

Mm-hmm.

This is really fun and I'm looking forward to the next vessel we're going to taste test, but until then, I want to, uh, thank our listeners so much for tuning in. We appreciate you so much each and every week, and I also want to thank our patrons. Without your support Sake Revolution would not happen, and we appreciate you guys so.

And if you have any, thoughts that you'd like to share with us, any questions, comments, that sort of thing. Um, number one, if you're a patron, you can just, you guys reach out to us on Patreon. We're right there. but. In addition, we have an email address set up called [email protected]. You can also get at us on social media, Instagram, Twitter, uh, Facebook, or we are either Sake Revolution or Sake Revolution Pod. No TikTok just yet. So, you know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

If you would like to see the glasses that John and I were using today. Learn more about edo-kirik o You can check out our show notes at SakeRevolution.com where we'll have everything available there for you, and we'll also have a full transcript of today's episode.

Without any further ado, please raise your glass. Remember to keep drinking sake and Kanpai!