Cultural exchange

The name “Fu-Ki Sake” looks just enough like an off-color phrase to get your attention, which, of course, leads your filthy mind to think the manufacturers deliberately slapped it across the bottle. It’s decked out real cute, too, what with its cockeyed, purplish brush font adorning various shades of orange. But sake is just wine extracted from rice instead of grapes—nothing dirty there, unless the Japanese borrowed “fu-ki” from our vernacular and sweetened it with their own little spin.

In fact, this entry, from Godo Shusei, Japan’s largest sake maker, has two cool things going for it. In the first place, it’s 16-percent alcohol, plenty of kick for those interested in taking dinner to the next level (i.e., the upstairs bathroom). Neater still is the effect of the refined rice on the palate. Unlike wine-wine, whose sugars are fermented from honey or grapes, sake gets its flavors from the starches in the rice base, which pave the way to a cleaner palate and, thus, better-tasting food. Fu-Ki tastes vaguely like plums, which invites a lighter counterpart like fish (any kind of Alaska-spawned salmon is great with this) or a white cheese. Be careful to take a shot at a time, now; the colder, the better. And whatever you do, don’t drink this by itself or on an empty stomach. You’ll blow out your nose cartilage, followed closely, and for days, by your very sobriety.

As to the name: I suppose you can read “fu-ki” any way you want, but the reality is that it means “freedom,” which is what you’ll feel after that 16 percent sets in. Not a bad exchange for a $10 bill at BevMo and such as that. Think of all the money you’ll save with your very own Fu-Ki, as opposed to spending it on the girls who do it for a living.