You've Been Drinking Sake With Sushi All Wrong

According to booze blog Vinepair, you've been drinking sake with sushi all wrong. What's the wrong part? Drinking sake with sushi in the first place. While it may be tempting to order a carafe of hot rice wine to pair enticingly with raw fish (see, it already sounds good), you may want to err on the Japanese side and stick to water or tea.

The idea of drinking alcoholic beverages and food at the same time at all, let alone paired together, was a relatively obscure idea in Japanese culinary tradition up until the mid 1900s. Sake was served until the the meal began, and wasn't consumed alongside rice. The reasoning is sound: alcohol fills you up faster, leaving less room for something incredibly delicious like sushi.

You've seen the sake lists at Japanese restaurants — clearly sake and sushi are a match made in heaven, and sake producers, sommeliers and collectors are having a welcome moment in the wine and spirits industry. Be that as it may, if you truly want to taste the fish, the whole fish and nothing but the fish, go easy on (or perhaps forgo) the daiginjo.