sake

Lauren has shared her preferred Sake with the community and you should do the same!

Do you have a delicious photo to share? Put it in the Savory Sights group. It could be featured here on YumSugar!

Recently I sat down with a group of people to conduct my first-ever sake tasting. The event was hosted by SakeOne, a craft sake brewer that's based out of Oregon and known for producing award-winning and fun-flavored sakes.

The tasting paired 15 sakes with different artisan cheeses also from the beaver state. As I took my first sip of the grassy, smooth, vanilla-ish Momokawa Diamond, I realized that I didn't know very much about sake.

Here are 10 facts that I learned from the experience.

1. Contrary to what I was taught in college, the appropriate way to sip sake is not hot and dunked into a mug of beer, but rather, cold. In Japan, sake is served chilled. Because heating it will mask the flavor, if sake is offered hot, that means it's poor quality, bad-tasting sake.
2. All sake needs a special mold to ferment. It's called the koji mold. At SakeOne, they hand-mix the koji into the rice to help break down the starches.
3. The water that's used to make sake is more important than the rice. Only the purest of water can be employed, as it directly affects the taste and quality of the sake.
4. Although sake is known as rice wine, its production is more similar to beer than wine.
5. To make a batch of sake, the entire process of brewing, fermentation, and maturing takes three weeks.

Keep reading for more things you may not know about sake!

• Start eating these seven fat-fighting foods (chocolate included) — Health.com
• Jackie Warner will help you drop 10 pounds in 30 days — Shape
• Quick dinner: fish in a flash — Peanut Butter Fingers
• Healthify your happy hour with pineapple ginger sake cocktail — Vital Juice
• Get the lowdown on Vitamin Water — That's Fit.ca
• Ayurvedic diet road tested a month; learn the results — Lemon Drop

This story was written by member lauren and comes from the Savory Sights group in the YumSugar Community.For Halloween, my husband and I opted for a quiet and delicious sake dinner at Hanazen rather than a crazy party! We tasted 5 different sakes, all of which were completely different. Some with the traditional earthy flavor and others with a light, fruit and flower flavor. All very different and uniquely delicious. Each sake was accompanied by a traditional Japanese dish. In my opinion, the perfect dinner! The pictures were taken with my iPhone!

Have you eaten an awesome meal? Join the Savory Sights group, upload your photos and a description of the experience and it could be featured on YumSugar! If you are new to the YumSugar Community, here's a detailed guide to posting to groups .

It's almost July, and the palatable parties just keep coming. If you're a wine enthusiast, head over to Pinot Days or the Telluride Wine Festival. Beer more your thing? Throw back some sake bombs at the Beer & Sake Festival, or hit up the Colorado Brewfest. Here in Fog City, the Best of the Bay looks to be one heck of a soirée. What happenings are you hitting up?

If you know of anything that's been left off the list, please go ahead and chime in below!

• Sedona, AZ: Dine in Sedona Restaurant Fest — June 23-30
• Hampton, SC: Hampton County Watermelon Festival — June 23-28
• Gettysburg, PA: Gettysburg Festival — June 23-28
• Portsmouth, NH: Taste of the Nation Portsmouth — June 24
• London, OH: London Strawberry Festival — June 24-27
• San Francisco, CA: Pinot Days — June 24-28
• Wisconsin Rapids, WI: Cranberry Blossom Festival — June 24-28
• San Diego, CA: Beer & Sake Festival — June 25
• Milwaukee, WI: The 2009 Big Taste — June 25
• San Francisco, CA: Best of the Bay — June 25
• Ft. Lauderdale, FL: Taste of the Nation South Florida — June 25

To see the rest, read more