What is Amazake? Amazake is a sweet, creamy drink made from fermented rice.
People in Japan enjoy it year-round as it can be served either hot or cold. Additionally, it is full of vitamins and nutrients which makes it perfect for those looking for added health benefits.
The word amazake (甘酒) is a combination of the kanji, sweet and sake. While it is made in a similar process to Japanese sake, it can be made in both a non-alcoholic and low-alcohol version.
Its invention dates all the back to the Kofun period (300 to 538 AD) and it is even mentioned in the historical Japanese book Nihon Shoki (720 AD).
It is commonly served during New Years (Oshogatsu) at shrines and temples, as well as during the Hinamatsuri festival in March. It is a perfect drink to warm up with on a cold winter day.
Outside of Japan, the drink can be found in Asian grocery stores and in some natural food stores. While it is normally considered a beverage, it can also be used as a natural sweetener to add to other dishes. For example, adding amazake to smoothies adds a big boost of vitamins and nutrients. It even makes for a healthy alternative for sugar, mirin, or soy sauce when cooking.
How to Make Amazake
There are two ways to make amazake. The first way involves starting with koji mold, Aspergillus oryzae (麹, kōji), to ferment over cooked rice. This causes the carbohydrates in the rice to break down into sugars. Koji mold is commonly used in other Japanese traditional foods, such as miso, soy sauce, and sake.
In fact, the process to make amazake involves the same initial steps as when making regular sake. It seems counter intuitive, but this method makes both sake and the non-alcoholic version of amazake. The difference is that sake has a few extra steps.
When you make sake, the next step after the koji mold turns the rice carbohydrates into sugar is to add yeast, which then turns the sugars into alcohol. The sake is then strained and refined. We don’t add yeast to or strain amazake, so it still contains some rice particles and the sugars.
The straining of the sake, however, leaves the rice and subsequent yeast particles behind, which are referred to as sake lee or sake kasu (酒粕).
The sake lees are actually the secret to making the second version of amazake. The way to make this alternative version is to just mix the leftover sake lees with hot water and add a bit of sugar back in, which was previously eaten by the yeast. This yields a slightly alcoholic version of amazake since some of the alcohol is left behind in the sake lees after it has been strained.
So if you don’t mind your amazake having a little alcohol in it, then just purchasing sake lees is considered the comparatively easier method of the two.
Health Benefits of Amazake
Amazake is said by some to be a hangover cure and sometimes referred to as a “drinkable IV”. With “IV” being short for the medical term “Intravenous”. This is because amazake has fantastic health benefits and contains many of the same nutrients used in an IV.
Nutrients and Vitamins in amazake include:
- Vitamin B1
- Vitamin B2
- Vitamin B6
- Folic acid
- Dietary fiber
- Oligosaccharide
- Cysteine
- Arginine
- Glutamine
All these nutrients and vitamins provide benefits like helping with digestion, increasing metabolism, improving skin health, anti-aging, and immune system health. The non-alcoholic version is safe and very healthy for not just adults, but for children as well. Even pregnant or breastfeeding women can enjoy it.
Where to get it?
So now you know what amazake is, but where do you get some to try for yourself? Aside from traveling to Japan, you can find it in Asian grocery stores and in some natural food stores; however, not everyone lives close to those kind of places. Instead you can easily purchase amazake online. If you want to be a little more adventurous, you can buy the ingredients and make your own at home.
However you end up getting your hands on some to try, enjoy it for both the amazing health benefits and great taste.
