As relevant now as it was then, Akashi-tai continues to be a market-leader and relentless tailblazer of authentic, Japanese sake. If you fancy a taste of something new, or enjoy the odd sake and want a prime example, you’re in the right place. Kanpai! Akashi-Tai Junmai Ginjo Sparkling Sake is made at the Akashi Sake Brewery. It is made in the same way as Champagne and other traditional method sparkling wines starting with a Ginjo Sake then undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle. The brewery was founded by the Yonezawa family in 1886 in the town of Akashi, one of the major fishing town in the west of Japan. It is an excellent location for a sake brewery with the surrounding fertile soils which are perfect for growing rice and plenty of clean spring water supplies which need for sake production. Akashi Tai is a small artisanal brewery, known as a ‘kura’, who would have previously mainly supplied the local population. However, since the new president Kimio Yonezawa, took over there have been some major developments. The brewery has expanded and modernized its sake-brewing activities, and now produces and sells a wide variety of hand-crafted sakes. It’s brewed at the famous Hayashi Honten, one of a few Japanese breweries run by a woman, in Gifu prefecture. Jidai as well as the previous Tedorigawa Junmai are made using a more traditional yamahai method, which results in a richer and deeper taste and higher acidity. However, Judai is still ginjo sake with a fruity aroma full of apricot, pear, baked apple and a bit of herbal notes. Tamagawa Tokubetsu Junmai is a savoury full-bodied sake with a deep taste and silky texture. For me, it tasted sweeter chilled or at room temperature than hot. The sweetness seems to dissolve as you warm the sake up. As many junmai sake, Tamagawa is not particularly aromatic sporting some rice notes and a bit of earthiness.

The drinking of warm sake spread from the aristocracy to the common people during the middle part of the Tokugawa Period (1600-1867), when the drinking of sake itself became popular with the masses. That flavour is dictated by each brewery's toji – the sake master. Unlike wine, where taste is as much about the soil as the choice of grapes and which kind of wood it's aged in, sake is purely about ingredients and technique, rather than terroir.

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The most interesting part of the sake’s name is “kijoshu”, which refers to a special brewing technique when instead of water a brewer adds sake to the fermenting mash at the final stage. It gives the resulted sake a luxurious feel, deep flavour and distinctive viscosity. Normally, kijoshu sake is very sweet, but not in the case of Kanpai Tsuki, which is rather dry. Surely, Hakusturu Excellent Junmai has it in the name. The sake is really excellent, affordable and versatile. You can enjoy it at any temperature. Chilled, it has a light aroma of grapefruit, toasted rice and green apple. When you drink Hakusturu Excellent Junmai straight out of the fridge, the sake is off-dry with pleasant acidity and light vanilla and Bromley apple notes. The sake is medium-bodied, with a silky texture and a long nice finish. Though sake is a drink steeped in ancient Japanese tradition and history, it’s a category that’s not always easily understood outside of Japan. Fortunately, quality, craftsmanship and taste are universal – and Akashi-Tai places all of these at the forefront of its production to create elegant, balanced but characterful sakes. Keeping tradition alive

The toji decides on the rice variety," says Cheong-Thong Marie Cheong-Thong, an effervescent sake obsessive who sits on the board for the British Sake Association and judges at the International Wine and Spirits Competition. "He decides on the yeast variety, he decides on how he makes his koji, he decides on the polish of the rice." Different types of sake

Akashi aren’t traditional or artisan for its own sake, - as in sake, not sake - oh for goodness sake! I mean - never mind... For example, the company uses the yamada-nishiki variety of rice — a superior strain — grown in the region just north of Akashi. However, when you start warming the sake up, it becomes much more enjoyable. The acidity melts down with the sweetness making the taste more mellow and gentle. The spiciness from alcohol becomes more prominent but without a strong alcohol aftertaste. The different temperatures provide a changing array of flavours for the palate to appreciate. Warm sake is rather unusual in the world of alcoholic beverages, but it has a long history.

Given the region’s reputation for producing sake, it’s no surprise that the brewery is dedicated to deep-rooted brewing traditions and heritage. Akashi-Tai is true artisan sake, handmade in small batches by the toji (or master brewer) Kimio Yonezawa and his close team of trusted craftsmen. But to Akashi-Tai, respecting tradition also means keeping it alive, in an unending quest to challenge and improve throughout every step of the sake-making process. The company incorporated in 1918, after which it made the most of a geographic location ideal for making fine sake. In brewing its select sakes, Akashi Sake Brewery uses only the choicest ingredients, often produced locally. I tried it chilled first and the low temperature does not do justice to Kanpai Tsuki. The fun starts at room temperature as the sake opens up. So you can smell sweet apple and pear with honey notes and some herbs and a bit of chestnut. It’s a full-bodied sake, slightly fizzy with a creamy texture notable acidity and spiciness from the higher alcohol content. It has a bitter but pleasant finish.As a category, sake may still have an air of mystery about it – but with Akashi-Tai’s focus on quality, flavour and true craftsmanship, the brewery is proving that it’s certainly one worth investigating. Akashi aren’t traditional or artisan in a manner that would hinder them, however, and they have embraced modern innovations such as temperature controlled fermentation in recent years. The more recent progressive outlook led Akashi to individual discoveries and ideas, the prime example probably being the ‘Genmai Aged Sake’; Japan’s first ever brown rice sake. Bottled and released in 2005 following its inception in 2002, ‘Genmai Aged Sake’ represents a truly novel concept, using unpolished (brown) rice that’s aged for a unusually long time. This cookie is set by Rubicon Project to control synchronization of user identification and exchange of user data between various ad services. I have featured Akashi-Tai sake before as I quite like it. However, it’s the first time I tried Akashi-Tai Tokubetsu Junmai. I asked Miho san, who represents the brewery here, what her favourite temperature for drinking this sake. “Make it really hot!” she replied. So I started with 50C and wasn’t disappointed.

You can drink Tedorigawa Yamahai Junmai chilled but it doesn’t give it justice. Made by using a yamahai method, the sake acidity at 1.6 and SMV +2.0. It’s not that aromatic which is normal for junmai sake with gentle green tomatoes, rice, lemon and timber notes. Japan's signature drink has been brewed for around as long as hanami celebrations have existed, with historians dating its invention to the Nara period (710-794), although booze of various forms has been drunk on the island from at least the third century. Akashi-Tai Honjozo sake is made to be slightly lighter in style than their other types of sake, using high quality rice and a small amount of brewers alcohol to create a crisp, dry and easy to drink sake.

Futsu-shu, which is barely polished, is best thought of as table sake. It accounts for the bulk of sake sold in Japan, and though you'll find some paint stripper, there are many excellent everyday drinkers if you look hard enough. Even the hushed sounds of natural fermentation at work can be heard in the cool, quiet rooms of our brewery."