I consider the lunch preview of the one-night-only dinner special, “The Art of Sake,” that’s coming up at Yakumi, Solaire Resort Entertainment City’s signature Japanese restaurant, on Aug. 24, as an education.

Simple—that was how I used to regard sake. I’d pour it into a miniature cup, usually a small, cylindrical vessel that Japanese restaurants call o-choko and I’d drink it straight up, but not before raising it, with an exclamation of kanpai or cheers, although kanpai, sometimes transliterated as kampai, is quite a cheerful command directed at my friends. Literally, it means “drink your cups dry.” 

Although there are many rituals surrounding the drinking of sake, such as in opening the bottle or pouring sake into a vessel, it’s also a fun drink, so we need not be bogged down by what’s right or wrong about drinking it. But, well, often served as it is in small cups of glass, earth, or porcelain, which does have an effect on its flavor, sake is not a shot. 

At its core, sake is simple. Rice is to sake what grape is to wine, and rice only needs three other elements to make sake—water, yeast, and a mold bred from kojikin, the fungus aspergillus oryzae, which enables the production of alcohol from rice by spurring its fermentation. You can have your sake chilled, you can have it steaming. You might want it filtered or unfiltered. You might prefer it dry or sweet.

But as with many other things, sake gets complex as you learn to appreciate it. In Japan, it is more popularly known as nihonshu, a term that encompasses its many kinds and its wide variety of aromas, flavors, and prices.

It might seem a no-brainer to choose the premium sake over the nonpremium, which translate to Japanese on the label respectively as tokutei meishō-shu (literally, “special designation sake”) or futsū-shu (“ordinary sake”), but it’s not quite as simple as that. There are other premium designations, such as junmai, ginjō, and honjōzō. Often, but not always, if these designations aren’t indicated on the label, what you have in your hand is just ordinary sake. Strike that—the word just is unfair because, in fact, there are sophisticates who prefer ordinary sake.

The difference is in the rice variety used. The more expensive types are the sake made with premium-quality rice that’s been polished to 60 percent or less of its weight or its seimai buai, the weight of the fraction of what’s left of the rice kernel after it has been polished. This rice-polishing ratio is how the purity of sake is determined, though it isn’t always a measure of its quality. Basically, the lower the seimai buai, the purer the sake. 

Some sake are also made with the addition of distilled alcohol not so much to cheat the process as to adjust the flavor and aroma at certain phases of production. I don’t know if this is frowned upon by the purists, but lately, as this Japanese staple became all the rage in the fine dining scene across the world, especially in the US, sake drinkers seem to prefer junmai-shu and junmai ginjō-shu that, with no added alcohol, are made with only water, koji, and premium rice polished to no more than 50 percent of its weight.

Yakumi on Aug. 24, starting at 6 p.m., is presenting a well-thought-through menu of exquisite dishes designed to draw out the nuances of a selection of premium sake, just as the sake have been chosen to go well with the dishes paired with them. 

On top of this sake-pairing special is Yakumi’s executive chef Norimasa Kosaka, Solaire’s director of beverage Daniel Blais, and sake sommelier Rossen Ingco Jr. 
At the preview lunch, it was my first time to relish my sake, which were served in crystal glasses instead of the usual o-choko—More than an experience, I found it to be quite an education.

The appetizer of sake-steamed king crab leg, Onsen tamago egg yolk, sturgeon caviar, asparagus, and dashi was a perfect match to the Junmai Ginjo “Zen” from Urakasumi in Miyagi Prefecture and its hints of steamed rice, melon, and white lily on the nose and its flavors of dried fruits.

Next on the menu was a duo of sushi made of Australian rock lobster tartar, striped jack sushi, tuna ceviche, toro sushi, and sansho pepper, which were brought in with a glass of the light and very elegant Junmai Daiginjo 65 percent milled “Solaire 10th anniversary” from Kagamiyama, Saitama Prefecture. This sake is in the category once considered “the way sake was.” 

A chawanmushi course followed, featuring soy-marinated Hokkaido scallop, smoked Spanish mackerel, roasted pine nuts, and XO sauce. It was perfect with the Junmai Daiginjo “12” from Kagamiyama, which was full-bodied in flavor yet delicate in mouthfeel, made as it was from sakemusashi rice, the first sake-dedicated rice developed in the Saitama Prefecture of Japan.

If you must go by my experience, I trust you would want some bread to wipe your dish clean of the last morsel—and the very last drop of the sauce—of the next course, Patagonian toothfish, fresh sea urchin, sake-marinated sansho leaf, and white soy beurre blanc foam. Wash it down with the charming, citrusy Junmai “Yamadanishiki 65” from Nito, Aichi Prefecture.

The other main course, the robatayaki of char-grilled US prime beef tenderloin, fresh black truffle, soy mirin glace, miso Hollandaise, and mushroom onigiri rice, was just as interesting as the sake that went with it, which owes its rich and complex flavor profile to having been aged in a snow storage room. The Junmai Daiginjo “Snow Aged” three years from Hakkaisan, Niigata Prefecture, redolent with peach, apricot, and plum on the nose and at once sweet and savory, with a hint of umami, on the tongue, has a strong, lingering finish. 

Which is why it is best followed with something sweet, which, at the “Art of Sake” dinner, will be the dessert of green tea roll cake, azuki beans, and Japanese plum wine sorbet, paired with the tart Umeshu Classic from Choya, Osaka, which was made from what the Japanese call the ume fruit or plum blossom.

I’m not sure I’m ready to venture on my own in continuing my sake education because I think my standards have been set too high. I’m going to need the guidance of a culinary master like Nori Kosaka and a sommelier like Daniel Blais to take me to the next level.

“The Art of Sake” dinner, priced at ₱6888+ per person, is on Aug. 24, 6 p.m., at Yakumi at the Solaire Resort Entertainment City in Parañaque City. Book your table through the hotline +632-8888-8888. www.solaireresort.com