“What? You bought more sake?” Etsuko asked, bewildered.
“Yeah, but not today. I got it last year at that tasting at Kuraya.”
You may see the kind of problem we’ve run into. Sometimes you just have to buy a bottle, or two, or three. They tend to pile up. I still had a bottle in the fridge that I had picked up last September. I kept waiting for the right time, and maybe this was it.
Despite taking a very fresh hiyaoroshi and letting it wait, and wait, and wait… I have to say it was still good and still close to what I had in mind from a brief encounter last year. A sake that can make an impression and live up to it later is a pretty good bottle.
In the end, Et-chan and I agreed that Toroman did not taste like a typical sake from Fukushima. It was very full–not heavy–but full. Etsuko picked up a bit of melon at the start. We both picked up the main vanilla and caramel taste and I wondered if I had hallucinated a little citrus hiding in there somewhere. A good acidity wasn’t at all prominent, but was definitely there to hold up the other end of the balance. And then, it was gone. Not gone, but for such a full-bodied sake, it didn’t linger long.
So, how did it compare to what I remembered from last September? I’d first tasted it on a Saturday evening after a long extra day at the office and recalled it as a powerful, complex sake. I think it has mellowed a bit. I had an image in my mind of something a bit rougher, but the full-flavor was just what I was looking for when I pulled the bottle out of the fridge. All in all, the rough and ready hiyaoroshi had become a full and satisfying bottle with a bit less edge to it. Good all around.
More information
Toroman 十ロ万（とろまん）is part of the Roman/ろまん series from Hanaizumi Shuzo in Minami Aizu, Fukushima
If you are in the Machida area, or even if you aren’t, Kuraya is worth a visit. Wine, nihonshu, or shochu–they carry a deep selection and have something special for everyone.
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Yes, the sake bottle fridge logjam predicament, I know it well. Hiya oroshi after almost a year, pretty interesting. These sake aging stories are starting to make me question the whole concept of drinking time for quality sake.
@Jocelyn I think we’ve just gotten lucky with some of our bottles that have lingered around the house or fridge too long. Generally, the fresher==better is probably on the spot. I’ve definitely had some that went to waste for not being consumed in time. But, I think our recent successes with unintended aging is that the underlying quality of the sake itself was good enough to carry through.