Word: rice
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Like most Japanese, I grew up around sake. The clear rice liquor--a fermented product somewhat similar to wine--infuses many important holidays and traditions here, not to mention poetry and cuisine. My father, an American who has lived in Japan for four decades, drinks it hot every night with dinner. My hometown, Kobe, produces nearly a third of the industry's yield. My mother's side of the family is even in the sake business. Still, until recently, I never cared much for the stuff. Its strong smell, fiery aftertaste and old-fashioned image seemed about as alluring...
Suigei's kura is chilly and dark and reeks sweetly of fermenting rice. The first step in the sakemaking process is the milling and polishing of rice. The more it is polished, the higher the grade of sake. In Suigei's top-grade daiginjo, each grain of famed Yamada nishiki rice is polished until just 30% remains. The rice is then washed and soaked in giant tanks, and poured into vats for steaming...
...cross a plank into the next building, where the steamed rice is fermented. Doi proudly shows me a Tupperware container holding what looks like green tea ground to powder. It's mold, a key ingredient that is mixed into the steamed rice and spread onto platforms in a sauna-like, cedar-paneled chamber, where the heat and humidity help the mold spores grow. To this mixture, Doi will add yeast and water to trigger fermentation...
Down wooden stairs, Doi hops nimbly onto a narrow catwalk 15 ft. above the floor, which connects 30 enormous steel tanks. Each holds a rice mash in varying stages of fermentation and cooling. "In my father's day," Doi says, "they didn't even use thermometers. He just stuck his hand in to determine the temperature." In the final stages of the month-long process, the mash is placed in bags and pressed in what looks like a giant accordion. The liquid that is squeezed out is pasteurized, filtered and aged for half a year in barrels before being bottled...
...putt curves like she said it would and plops in for a bogey, matching the Japanese who three-putt. As I learn on ensuing holes, Sawat knows what clubs to select, measures distances like a surveyor and reads the contours of greens as if they're her personal rice paddy. While my rivals drive heroically only to narrowly miss putts, I revel in rough and hunker in bunkers?and then drain epic putts thanks to my guru Sawat...