HOW JAPANESE IS SAKE?
The proper name for sake is Nihonshu, meaning
‘Japanese alcohol’ which is quite a powerful
statement. The word ‘sake’ simply means alcoholic
drink (perhaps closer to our word ‘booze’). After
all, the word ‘wine’ itself is not linked to any place:
it is only specific types of wine that bear the name
of their origin. The same is true for other drinks:
Irish Whiskey? Polish vodka? It’s the variant that
bears the name of the place. Nihonshu is different.
It’s not a type of sake, it is sake. It seems, somehow,
to embody Japan. In fact the use of the name
Nihonshu probably came about because of the
similarity in the kanji (Chinese symbols) for certain
Chinese and Korean beverages. Nihonshu’s ability
to repre