Thanksgiving is the Best Time to Discover Sake
While subbing or tweaking the staples of the Thanksgiving table can draw ire, you don’t have to mess with the mashed potatoes or switch up the stuffing to bring novelty to this year’s menu.
Look at your beverage lineup, specifically the wine list: You need not stress over finding that bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau.
Uncap sake instead.
Fermented from rice, served warm or cold, sake blends as well into a large, multicourse spread as any wine. Unlike wine, though, sake hasn’t any harsh sulfites or tannins and carries one-tenth the acidity. But sake holds enough complexity to stand up and slice through the richness of Thanksgiving dinner.
Todd Bellomy, founder of Farthest Star Sake in Medfield.
“Sake is so clean and flavorful and enhances the enjoyment of the meal because you're freshening up your palate with each sip,” says Todd Bellomy, founder of Farthest Star Sake, New England’s only sake brewer located in Medfield, about 40 minutes outside Boston.
The variety of dishes offered at Thanksgiving reminds Bellomy of a typical multicourse meal in Japan, even given the differences between the foods served. There, a new sake comes out for each course, he says. And no matter the food, the sake will pair beautifully.
“It’s extremely food-friendly,” he says, noting that versatility comes in part because of sake’s makeup. Sake has succinic and lactic acid, considered more delicate than the acids in wine.
“It helps sake not only pair with a wide variety of food, but cut through a lot of this heavier stuff,” Bellomy says.
As you would expect, Bellomy always takes out sake at Thanksgiving. Farthest Star’s two flagship sakes fall on opposite ends of the flavor spectrum, so they have the meal covered from the first dish to the last. Mountains on the Moon has sweeter notes, and In a Strange Land drinks cleaner and drier.
“While we’re snacking on cheese and charcuterie, I’ll have Mountains on the Moon: The sweetness and slightly higher acid is great with cheese,” he says. “In a Strange Land goes really well with meats and roasted foods.”
This year, Bellomy says he’ll sip on sake with dessert, as well, perhaps a growler of Farthest Star’s pumpkin spice sake or its house warm sake.
If you have guests who’ve never tried sake, he says to simply open a bottle and pour. Don’t fret over the details or explanations.
“Sake, we realized early on, is a very discoverable beverage,” he says. “Most of the people drinking it are new to it. With them, they want to be the ones to introduce their friends to it. Thanksgiving is a cool time to say, ‘Hey I love sake, the people I love in my life have no clue what it is, what a great time to try this thing you’ve never seen or tasted before.’”
This story appeared as an online exclusive in November, 2023.
