There’s a nihonshu bar in Fukuoka that I visit often.
It’s extremely well known among both tourists and locals, especially for its strong lineup of premium sake—Jikon, Aramasa, Juyondai, Shinshu Kirei, and the like.
At the bar, I often see tourists showing photos of Aramasa, Jikon, or Juyondai on their phones and asking the staff, “Do you have this?”
As someone who loves nihonshu just as much as they do, I can’t help but feel a lingering sense of disappointment.
Why does everyone end up drinking the same labels?
When we want to obtain information, the first thing we do is search the internet.
If we want to obtain information, the first thing we usually do is search the internet.
If we belong to a community we trust, we might search within that community instead.
Now imagine someone who has fallen in love with nihonshu but doesn’t know what to drink. They search online, then come to Japan—or perhaps they visit a nihonshu bar in their own country.
Aramasa, Jikon, Juyondai, Shinshu Kirei, Nabeshima, Ubusuna, Hanaabi, Hiran, Kangiku, Sharaku, Denshu, Akabu…
There are many people who enjoy nihonshu, yet the labels that actually get chosen are surprisingly limited.
And the sake that gets chosen this way tends to be the sake most easily recommended on the internet.
If you simply search “recommended nihonshu” on Google, you get about 77 million results. Even if you narrow it down to “recommended nihonshu in Fukuoka,” you still get hundreds of thousands of results.
Yet the nihonshu people end up liking is usually narrowed down to around ten labels.
Compared to the sheer volume of information available, our tastes feel excessively limited.
And that’s because the source of our preferences isn’t ourselves, but other people.
Let’s say you’re going to watch a movie.
If, before going, you read critics’ reviews, learn the meanings behind every cinematic device, and even know the plot twist in advance, you can’t watch the movie purely through your own emotions. You end up interpreting it through a borrowed framework of judgment.
You paid your own money to watch the movie, yet you entrusted its interpretation to someone else—leaving you with only a half-formed experience.
nother case comes from when I was working as a nurse.
Once I had a stable income, I started wanting to buy clothes, so I turned to fashion YouTube channels. The clothes the YouTubers praised generally looked stylish, and the materials seemed good. I bought them straight away online.
Some of those pieces really did have good fabric, finishing, and design. Others were just… okay.
But now, about three years later, after moving to Japan, around 95 percent of the clothes I bought back then have either been thrown away or downgraded to pajamas.
Both the first and second examples are about what I’d call “outsourced appreciation.”
Because information is so easy to access and explained so clearly, we stop making the effort to understand things using our own minds and senses.
And consumption that happens this way often leaves behind regret or a lingering sense of disappointment.
So now, let’s return to the topic of nihonshu.
You search online for information about “delicious nihonshu,” go to a nihonshu bar, and ask for the bottles that everyone unanimously recommends. Let’s say you end up being served Aramasa Hinotori.
That sake might suit your palate—or it might not.
What really matters is whether you used your own mind in choosing it.
Maybe you walked into the bar, looked at the labels, and one beautifully designed label instantly caught your eye—that’s the one I want to drink. Or maybe you paused to think about what kind of nihonshu would pair best with the food you were eating. If there was thought, hesitation, or even a quiet dialogue between you and the sake in that moment, then your choice carries your own intention.
Compared to the process of asking for a sake you researched online and had recommended to you in advance—essentially outsourcing your taste—this kind of choice reflects far more of your own opinion, time, and stubbornness.
And because of that, the nihonshu you choose this way settles much more firmly into your personal list of preferences.
There are, of course, moments when you genuinely have no idea what to order.
I’m the same. I go to a bar because I want to drink nihonshu, but I don’t always want to stick to what I usually drink—so I often find myself taking a bit of time to decide.
In those moments, I recommend outsourcing your choice to the people right in front of you, or to the interactions happening around you in real time.
Ask the staff at the nihonshu bar to recommend something that pairs well with the food you’ve ordered.
Ask for a nihonshu that was opened today, or one that’s almost gone.
Or simply order the sake that the person sitting next to you just asked for. There are many ways.
What I really want to say is this: take a risk.
Even a small risk is enough. Interesting things have always come from the unknown.
The reason my life feels interesting right now is that back in 2023, I never imagined I’d be living in Japan, running a sake-related blog, and filming videos about it. Yet here I am, walking this path—precisely because I chose to take risks that matched it.
Creating mystery and taking risks have a powerful ability to make things more interesting than sticking to a stable routine.
Through this, even life itself becomes more engaging—so how could nihonshu be any different? The very act of choosing nihonshu becomes enjoyable.
As I write this, it’s December 17th, 8:59 p.m. About two hours ago, during dinner, I drank a Christmas sake called X-factor made by Ippakusuisei. It turned out to be far better than expected. Despite being a strongly carbonated sparkling sake, it paired beautifully with yellowtail and even with a hot nabemono, gifting me a truly satisfying dinner.
The reason I chose this sake wasn’t because I’d read somewhere online that it was good. I went to a sake shop looking for something Christmas-related, and it happened to be placed right above a bottle of Senkin Yukidaruma, which I personally like. The label felt festive, and the 300 ml size seemed easy to finish in one sitting—that was enough reason.
One might argue, “But the nihonshu talked about online really are delicious, so what’s wrong with that?” That’s not incorrect. When many people seek out the same sake, there’s usually a reason behind it.
But while that isn’t wrong, it’s also not wrong to say that narrowing your choices by following online opinions or industry consensus slowly erodes your own style.
“If you choose colors based on the Pantone Color Book, your options are confined to a fixed number. But step into nature, and the palette becomes infinite. Even a single stone contains countless variations of color. We can’t even create a single can of paint that perfectly reproduces one exact color found in nature.”
This is a reflection on color by the renowned writer and producer Rick Rubin. It shows us how standards defined by others can quietly draw the boundaries of our own limits.
Your style is shaped by your own accumulated experiences.
A nihonshu name that once slipped past you, but suddenly resurfaces in your mind.
A label or a name that, for some reason, pulls at you.
A nihonshu that makes you want to drink it after hearing the staff explain it.
When comments like “this one is good” or “this is better for the price” on the internet—recommendations from people whose faces and voices you don’t even know—end up deciding the direction of your taste, something is off.
If your current taste feels dull or uninspiring, it’s probably because it isn’t colored by you. It’s an ambiguous shade, forcibly blended from other people’s preferences or the taste of the crowd, and that’s why it feels unsatisfying.
Taste doesn’t appear overnight. It’s formed through countless experiences within that field, mixed with many other experiences outside of it, until it slowly becomes something uniquely your own.
That’s why developing taste and giving it your own color takes time—and money.
And that’s exactly why the person who decides your taste should be you.
So then, how can we actually develop our taste?
Take clothing as an example. Put off ordering clothes online for a while and go to a physical store instead. Just as a movie loses its magic when you already know the twist because of spoilers, curiosity about clothes fades when you’re spoiled with ideas like “this brand is like this,” “that brand is like that,” or “what’s trending now is this material from this brand.” Once spoiled, you stop feeling curiosity and start focusing only on price and value for money. Your attention narrows to material things—only what’s immediately visible and easily comparable. That’s how the range through which you understand your own taste becomes smaller. So go to the store, try things on, touch them, and if something makes you think, this is it, buy it. Lower price on your list of priorities.
The same applies to nihonshu.
When you visit a sake shop, use things like label designs that appeal to you, the sake the shop is pushing, or the staff’s recommendations—but make the final choice based on your own judgment.
At a nihonshu bar, do the same. If a label catches your eye, try it. If you’re unsure, give the staff some conditions: “a sake opened today,” “a sake that’s almost gone,” or “a sake that pairs well with what I just ordered.” That makes it much easier for them to recommend something. If you simply say, “Give me a good sake,” even the staff might not know what to serve.
Even if the sake you choose that way doesn’t match your taste, there’s no need to feel disappointed. Your taste has still moved one step forward. You can simply exclude that style from your personal list.
Going to the same place repeatedly also helps a lot.
When you build a good relationship with the staff, they’re more likely to offer better service rather than trying to upsell you. They’ll put more effort into explaining nihonshu, and into making those explanations more interesting. Enjoying the taste and aroma alone is already great content—but when you add the atmosphere of the place, the pairing with food, and interactions with the staff or the person sitting next to you, you begin to feel something beyond taste and aroma.
After all, what truly moves us has never been just material things.
Today, I talked about a way of thinking that can be helpful when ordering nihonshu.
This doesn’t apply only to nihonshu, but to all alcohol—and even to food. There is always something that exists beyond taste and aroma.
Taste and aroma are easy to understand and easy to experience because they reach us intuitively through our five senses.
But they don’t stay with us for very long.
There is always something beyond them, and I believe that something can only be felt with the heart, through experiences that are uniquely your own.
