This week we soar into the firmament and then plunge into the deep to snatch this drink from Davy Jones’s Locker, but first a little history. In the heady days that were 1969 one of us was in a rather famous bar in a large city on the night of the moon landing. It was a slow evening for this establishment, as only a few people were at the bar; the music that ordinarily filled the place was curiously silent, and a color TV placed under the array of bottles faced the drinkers seated at the bar. The landing footage, which was in black and white on the color TV, flickered in our eyes. It was in alphabetical order—all A, B, C. Armstrong appeared first, followed by Buzz, and Collins remained on board the mother ship, in beam-me-up,-Scotty,-style. A’s foot landed first on the foreign soil, which proved not to be green cheese, to the great dismay of this writer, and there was no mochi-mallet wielding rabbit poised to charge A with trespassing. Then, at this portentous moment the infamous words were spoken; namely, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” to which this writer’s reaction was swift and unambiguous—“What the hell does that mean?” Well, it was either leaping small or small-stepping big or something to that effect. Anyway, we are going to bring this back to Earth, at least for a little while.
This week we are going to review Bijofu Uchushinkaishu Junmai Ginjo (美丈夫 宇宙深海酒 純米吟醸), a nihonshu produced by Tosa’s (Kochi Prefecture) Hamakawa Shoten. Aside from the pleasant drinking experience, there are two things that are noteworthy about this brew. The Kochi yeast that was used to produce it spent ten days in space aboard the Soyuz spacecraft in 2005, after which it was submerged in the ocean at a depth of 6,200 meters in 2021, for four months. We are surprised that Davy surrendered this prize. It is most enjoyable. Bijofu is a jizake, made from gin-no-yume rice. It has a fruity nose of moderate intensity, with a hint of cotton candy in the background. It is very pale lemon in color, with a medium (+) body, an abv of 15%, a tiny bit of fizz, and is classified as junmai-ginjo. There is a high level of acidity on the palate and a bit of sweetness to make this drink most intriguing. We felt that this sake would be appropriate for almost any occasion. Davy’s loss is our gain.
Drinking Japan 