littlemissfab wrote:

i would love a cold san miguel beer right about now.. dang.. long day.. long day indeed

that's some good beer....
also Asahi...

Boddingtons on sale at Vons, $5.99... i just cleaned out the So. Pasadena store.

krim wrote:

Boddingtons on sale at Vons, $5.99... i just cleaned out the So. Pasadena store.

wow, you must've bought a lot...

I never mentioned that one time a while back when I went to go party at Geisha House in Hollywood...I actually shared a bottle of sake with my friends called "Summer Snow." It was hella funny, my friend and I laughed about that one...it was actually pretty good stuff too.

Sorry RYOKO HIROSUE OR TSUYOSHI DOHMOTO not included.

i want my roadhouse long island iced tea.

littlemissfab wrote:

i want my roadhouse long island iced tea.

well if you wanna get f*cked up hella quick...not as refined as the summer snow.

littlemissfab wrote:

i want my roadhouse long island iced tea.

that drink will be enough for one evening...loaded with alcohol....

for sake lovers or those looking to get that hard to find bottle


www.truesake.com

Tu_triky wrote:

well if you wanna get f*cked up hella quick...not as refined as the summer snow.

that drink is full of sugars.. it ain't even funny...

ok.. so im stuck drinking $2 venti iced green teas from starbucks.. i'm seriously contemplating on purchasing yamatoyama teas..

$2 * 5days = $10.. one week... ridonkilous (as ryan cabrera would say it..)

littlemissfab wrote:

that drink is full of sugars.. it ain't even funny... ok.. so im stuck drinking $2 venti iced green teas from starbucks.. i'm seriously contemplating on purchasing yamatoyama teas.. $2 * 5days = $10.. one week... ridonkilous (as ryan cabrera would say it..)

well it doesn't even matter if liquor is filled with sugars because each gram of alcohol has the same amount of calories as each gram of carbs..and you body processes carbs and alcohol in similar fashion.

if you are drinking those green teas with sugar you're wasting your time if you are expecting a weight loss benefit. i drink the yamamato yama iced green tea powder packets...no sugar.

littlemissfab wrote:

that drink is full of sugars.. it ain't even funny... ok.. so im stuck drinking $2 venti iced green teas from starbucks.. i'm seriously contemplating on purchasing yamatoyama teas.. $2 * 5days = $10.. one week... ridonkilous (as ryan cabrera would say it..)

that all adds up.....

Tu_triky wrote:

well it doesn't even matter if liquor is filled with sugars because each gram of alcohol has the same amount of calories as each gram of carbs..and you body processes carbs and alcohol in similar fashion. if you are drinking those green teas with sugar you're wasting your time if you are expecting a weight loss benefit. i drink the yamamato yama iced green tea powder packets...no sugar.

nai.. no sugar boo. as prescribed by you guys and that hot barista in the starbucks by my gym..

*in heart*

Tu_triky wrote:

for sake lovers or those looking to get that hard to find bottle www.truesake.com

nice

qilver wrote:

nice

from the Wall Street Journal

Sake Brewers
Look to the Past

By ERIC FELTON
February 4, 2006; Page P12


Nearly 20 years ago, I had dinner at a small, very traditional Japanese restaurant in New York. At the end of the meal, a savvy friend ordered something I'd never heard of before -- nigori-zake. The waitress brought us little square, wooden drinking boxes called "masu" filled with a milky white drink. Sweet and thick, it could have been the sake version of Cozy Shack rice pudding. Japanese cuisine isn't big on dessert -- and doesn't need to be with nigori-zake as a closer.

It's something of a misnomer to call sake "rice wine." Though Japan's traditional drink is vaguely vinous in taste, it is made from grain at breweries, and is really more of a beer. Steamed rice is combined with a mold called "koji" that converts the starches into fermentable sugars. Add water and yeast and you get a mash that is ultimately pressed and filtered to produce a clear, refined sake.

But it wasn't always that way. For most of the history of the drink, brewers didn't bother -- or weren't able -- to filter out every last speck of rice, which produced a sake that was nigori, or "cloudy." Hundreds of years ago, most sake was nigori-zake, and it figured prominently in the country's economy. In medieval Japan, farmers paid their taxes in rice, much of which was monetized by being brewed into sake. According to historian Suzanne Gay, money lenders in big cities saw breweries as a profitable place to sink their excess cash. If you needed a loan in 14th-century Kyoto, you went to the guy making nigori-zake.

VERY GOOD
• Yaegaki $17
Silky and just sweet enough; classic nigori
• Rihaku's Dreamy Clouds $30
Elegant and highly refined for a rough-filtered sake

GOOD/VERY GOOD
• Momokawa's Pearl $10
Heavy and sweet, thick and coconut creamy
• Ohyama $16
Subtle and food-friendly, with a buttery finish
• Kurashizuku $34
A sparkling nigori-zake with surprisingly zing

GOOD
• Hyousho's Diamond Dust $30
Very dry for a nigori-zake
• Hitorimusume $18
Light to the point of being watery, with a bright taste
• Shirakawago "sasanigori" $22
Well-balanced, but just a little flat
• Yukiwatari $32
Interesting flavor, marred by pasty texture

There is one grade of sake even more rustic than nigori-zake, an unfiltered, chunky homebrew called "doburoku." But 100 years ago, Japan's tax man made doburoku illegal -- moonshiners do nothing to fill government coffers. Doburoku became furtive, but nigori-zake just fell out of fashion and largely out of production.

But now more and more breweries in Japan are making nigori-zake, partly as a way to revitalize the industry by delving into its traditions, and partly because many Japanese have reacquired a taste for it. It turns out there's a taste for nigori in the States, too, and now a surprisingly large number of nigori-zakes are available here. One of the largest selections can be found at San Francisco's True Sake ( www.truesake.com), which ships nationwide.

I sat down with Koji Terano, the head chef at Washington's Sushi-Ko restaurant, to do a blind tasting of nine bottles of nigori-zake I had assembled. We tasted between bites of crab cakes, flounder carpaccio, lobster soup and grilled beef to see which of the nigori-zakes worked with dinner, and which were best suited to before or after a meal.

We drank our nigori-zake chilled, which -- as with most good sake -- is the best way. Though Japanese traditionally might warm sake during the winter to fend off the cold, the notion that it is a drink best served warm is generally true only if the sake is cheap and harsh -- the sort you're likely to get from a vending machine in Tokyo.

The best food-friendly nigori-zake we tried was Dreamy Clouds from the Rihaku brewery. Elegant and dry (at least dry for a nigori-zake), the Rihaku could easily pass for a refined sake if you drank it with your eyes closed. Dreamy Clouds is well-balanced and fully rounded, without being heavy. It has good "umami," a taste that satisfies and makes you want to have more. Of the sakes we tasted, it was Chef Terano's favorite.

Nigoris from Ohyama, Hitorimusume and Shirakawago took the same subtle approach as the Rihaku. Though perhaps tending toward the bland, they were pleasant enough and went well with a variety of Japanese food.

Still, I was looking for the sort of indulgent and unapologetic nigori-zake that hooked me in the first place. I found it in a creamy nigori from Yaegaki, a brewery in Japan's central Hyogo region. The texture was silky, with elusive bits of pulverized rice; the taste was just sweet enough, and finished with the slightest sour whisper that kept it from cloying. This is a sake to save for dessert, and worth waiting for.

Yaegaki has been brewing sake since 1666. But as with most other breweries in Japan, it dropped nigori-zake as backward and rustic as the country modernized and urbanized. It wasn't until 1967 that the brewery started making nigori again; four years ago, Yaegaki started shipping it to the U.S.

The Momokawa Pearl nigori-zake is brewed by SakéOne in Forest Grove, Ore. Also a dessert brew, it is sweeter and coconut-creamier than the Yaegaki, and not quite as interesting. But at $10 a bottle, it was the tasting's best value.

The biggest surprise of the tasting came with the first sip of a nigori-zake called Kurashizuku, made by the Kiuchi brewery. The sake master, or "toji," captures some of the gas that burbles up as the sake brews, creating a sparkling nigori-zake. The carbonation had zip and zing, tightly packed bubbles that seemed to pop all at once. And perhaps they did just that: The fizz was an evanescent effervescence, vanishing before half the cup was drunk. Just as you might serve champagne before dinner, try the Kurashizuku as an aperitif.

Nigori-zake is no longer quite so hard to find. And that's a good thing, because nigori-zake isn't just an easy introduction to sake for newbies, it's also a taste of Japanese history.

First time in this thread.
Very interesting article, Tu!!
_________________

Heavy emphasis on alcoholic drinks here

As for me, my favourite drink is Maeil's Biofeel - those are just delicious!!

Eve wrote:

First time in this thread. Very interesting article, Tu!!

Hey Eve....Cheers to You!!!

Yeah Tu, good article...Thanks!!! I bought the Momokawa Pearl Junmai Ginjo Nigori sake recently. I haven't tried it yet. On the back of the bottle it has pairing suggestions of spicy cuisines, curry and coconut flavors. It is made by SakeOne. According to SakeOne's website they are the world's one and only American owned sake brewery. I'll let you guys know what I think of their sake after I try it.

Eve wrote:

First time in this thread. Very interesting article, Tu!!

Enna wrote:

Hey Eve....Cheers to You!!! Yeah Tu, good article...Thanks!!! I bought the Momokawa Pearl Junmai Ginjo Nigori sake recently. I haven't tried it yet. On the back of the bottle it has pairing suggestions of spicy cuisines, curry and coconut flavors. It is made by SakeOne. According to SakeOne's website they are the world's one and only American owned sake brewery. I'll let you guys know what I think of their sake after I try it.

You're most welcome, I'm glad you ladies found the article interesting! Yeah I've been fortunate to have tried 2 of the nigoris (Dreamy Clouds & Hitorimusume) mentioned in the article but I'd love to hear your review of the Momokawa Pearl you purchased, Enna. I am interested in purchasing a bottle of the Yaegaki, perhaps.....from www.truesake.com

Wow an American sake company...I'll have to look into that one

Thanks for the sake thing.

It's nice to know that VERY GOOD sake is cheaper than GOOD sake.
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Tu_triky wrote:

You're most welcome, I'm glad you ladies found the article interesting! Yeah I've been fortunate to have tried 2 of the nigoris (Dreamy Clouds & Hitorimusume) mentioned in the article but I'd love to hear your review of the Momokawa Pearl you purchased, Enna. I am interested in purchasing a bottle of the Yaegaki, perhaps.....from www.truesake.com Wow an American sake company...I'll have to look into that one

wow, there's an American Sake Co.? interesting.