By Tara Kelly
Photographs by Sabrina Eberhard

In an area known for its microbreweries and high-end whiskey distilleries, the Hudson Valley is now home to a sake brewery. Sake, sometimes referred to as rice wine, is made with a short-grain rice similar to arborio. Add water, koji, and yeast, let it ferment for 30 days and voila, you have sake. 

Of course, it’s more involved than throwing a bunch of ingredients in a pot and putting a lid on it. For eons, sake was traditionally only made in the winter, often in unheated barns, as a cool temperature is key to its success. But in this climate-controlled era, it’s possible to brew sake year-round   

At the Dassai Blue Sake Brewery on Route 9 in Hyde Park, visitors can get a behind-the-scenes tour to see how sake is made. Tasting room manager Kevin Tran leads a tour of the pristine facility. Participants suit up in garb designed to keep the process free of any outside contaminants. 

“The rice, yamada nishiki, has a high concentration of starch, which is what imbues the sake with its delicate aroma and sweetness. Polishing the rice removes the outside of the rice kernel. The more the rice is polished, the more elegant the sweetness,” Tran says.

 While this is Dassai’s first brewery in the United States, it is a global brand with something of a cult status. In 2018, Dassai and celebrated French chef Joel Robuchon teamed up and opened a high-end restaurant in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Kenzo Shimotori, president of Dassai USA, tells a story about a French chef who, when he couldn’t think of the best wine for a particular dish, said, “Let’s serve sake.”

 At first glance a sake brewery in Hyde Park might seem a bit random, but it’s the proximity to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and the tradition of food and wine pairing that brought Dassai Blue to the Hudson Valley. Amanda Secor, at the CIA, says that in 2015 a team from the CIA went to Japan to learn more about the art and science of sake, and discuss the possibility of establishing a Dassai brewery at the institute.

Ultimately the project was bigger than they could accommodate, and the long-empty Stop & Shop supermarket  in Hyde Park seemed ideal. The new facility is dedicated not just to producing sake to their exacting standards, but also to educating people about sake, its history, and its possibilities.

Making sake also involves a very important Japanese concept called “tema,” which roughly translates to “handmade”—but more specifically means that an almost spiritual level of care is imbued in each step, by each person in the process. 

This level of care and attention to detail is not only evident throughout the brewing process but also in the tasting room, where visitors are treated to a sampling of sakes and small bites, making a stop at Dassai Blue Brewery a wonderful new addition to anyone’s Fun Things-to-Do List.—dassai.com