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There’s nothing like enjoying a pleasant family film full of laughs plastered off your ass. At least, that’s what I believe. In honor of Kung Fu Panda we’re going to take a spin with some sake. Now before I get flamed, Kung Fu is Chinese in origin and most sake that we drink in America, and the sake I’ll be talking about, is traditionally Japanese. There is a similar Chinese alcoholic beverage (Huang Jiu) though, so we’ll be ok.

For some background, sake is often referred to as “rice wine,” though technically it is a fermented rice beverage, with a brewing process closer to that of beer, a taste closer to liquor, and an alcohol content closer to wine. Really, a beverage without a home trying to be everything at once.

Serving

Sake sets are common at beverage retailers and some supermarkets. They consist of a serving flask called a tokkuri and either small cups or a more traditional masu, which is a wooden 6oz box, full to the brim. The sets you’ll likely find these days are made of ceramic and the cups will be smaller, around 4oz, and called ochoko.

Drinking

This drink can be enjoyed either hot, warm, or chilled. Typically the temperature it is consumed at is relative to the outside temperature – hot in winter, cold in summer, and warm in between. To heat the sake, the tokkuri is placed in either hot or warm water. To chill it, the server may be put in cold water, though more often the bottle itself is placed in the freezer. Purists drink chilled sake from an ochoko while traditionalists drink room temperature sake out of a masu.

So there you have it, my animated film loving friends. Have a few ochokos of chilled sake before hitting the theater, and then head home to a warm tokkuri full of the good stuff.