SakéOne Moonstone Raspberry
Last week when we were in the rather sake-deprived state of Connecticut, I spotted the blue bottle along with several other of their fruit-infused sake at big, otherwise pretty generic-seeming liquor shop in a mall in New Haven. I had to try it. Since Moonstone Raspberry seem to be widely available in the US, it may not be anything exotic, but for us, it triggered our curiosity just like Mango or Peach Snapple Green Tea because it’s a combination we simply do not see in Japan.
“It’s all clear, just like regular nihonshu!” I was totally caught by surprise since I was expecting a trace of reddish raspberry color in the brew as I poured it into a beer mug. Well, it had the very distinct aroma but subtle taste of the sweet, tart berry, but with all the characteristics of regular sake. After checking the SakeOne web site, I see that they add the flavor at bottling. People sometimes taste pear, muscat, or berry in regular ginjo or daiginjo, so I suppose this is a more direct approach. As we were finishing up this new (at least new to us) adaptation of sake, we decided to try it again with a summer BBQ–and a wine glass.
[Photo credit @calliope for the front page picture.]
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I found one of my note-taking pix on my iPhone from the trip. It was so frustrating not being able to Tweet things while in the States (but hardly worth the international roaming charges–even for me!)
There was actually a pretty reasonable sake selection at that shop considering it is in a mall in the burbs of Connecticut. Things have changed since I lived there!
Click through for the pic if you like, the one I most wonder about is the coconut. Coconut flavored sake!? Sounds too much like Malibu for my tastes, but I still would like to try it. They should sell them in tasting packs of 180ml bottles.
I love Sake. Always have them the more classical way, but that raspberry one sounds great.
@S_Lloyd I would recommend giving it a try when you get a chance. It is really quite surprising.
I’m not sure a cold winter day was best, but I bet it would be really refreshing on a summer evening.
Was at a Korean super-mart (when did the word “supermarket” suddenly start sounding old-fashioned?) and I saw this “sake” on offer. I couldn’t quite get my arm to reach out and take the bottle (some residual snobbery paralyzed me), but I did pull down a bottle of Sake One’s Momokawa Diamond. Will report as always. I’ll wait till summer for the tooti-fruitie, although God knows I trust your judgment on these things.
Japanese Osechi, Korean grocery,,,, you have just about everything you need there! Can you try Coconut Lemongrass next time?
Ha! The coconut was on the shelf next to the raspberry. For me to even give that a chance, I’d have to overcome the idea of tanning lotion.