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This is the story of a drink that is wrongly regarded as a highly alcoholic digestive<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How could this be possible in a population lacking the very enzyme that facilitates alcohol metabolism? Where the Chinese have their baiju – spirits distilled from sorghum-based cereal wine – the Japanese have their sake<\/strong>, made from fermented rice<\/strong>. The former contain up to 50\u00b0 alcohol, the latter between 13 and 16\u00b0<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Deeply rooted in Japanese culture<\/strong>, to the point of having been elevated to the status of national drink, sake was most likely born in China<\/strong>. However, the Japanese have perfected its production, notably through the discovery of an ascomycete fungus.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sake-making using koji<\/strong>, a kind of mold that transforms starch ingredients into sugar, has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.<\/strong> It is the archipelago’s 23rd entry on this list<\/strong>, after n\u00f4gaku theater, washoku cuisine and local folk dances. Benefiting from the veritable Japan Mania<\/strong> that animates Europeans in search of exoticism and imbued with Kawaii culture – based on anime and manga – since their earliest childhoods in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, sake nevertheless suffers froma continuing disaffection in its country of origin.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sake is<\/strong> not the only traditional alcoholic beverage to have been recognized by Unesco <\/strong>last December: shochu<\/strong>, a distilled liqueur (made from sweet potatoes, barley, rice, etc.) from south-western Japan, is also present, as are awamori<\/strong> (a traditional alcoholic beverage from Okinawa) and mirin<\/strong> (Japanese rice wine).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although the term sake refers to the famous beverage and, by extension, all Japanese alcoholic beverages, the Japanese population prefers the term nihonshu<\/strong> (\u65e5\u672c\u9152, literally \u201cJapanese alcohol\u201d), to designate it more specifically.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Initially reserved for the imperial court<\/strong>, sake was also given as a sacred offering<\/strong> to the kami, the Japanese deities. At the heart of Shinto religious rituals, it earned the title of \u201cdrink of the gods\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the 8th century<\/strong> (Nara period), sake was given its letters of nobility by an edict of the imperial court<\/strong>. The sophistication of its production, thanks to the discovery of a fungus essential to the fermentation process, prompted the imperial palace during the Heian era (794-1185) to create a dedicated department. The department’s task was to ensure strict compliance with production techniques and its use in rituals<\/strong>. It wasn’t until the Edo Era<\/strong> (1603-1868) that the multi-stage brewing technique<\/strong>, virtually unchanged since then, became established.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nAncestral know-how<\/h2>\n