Wartime Sake Production

Video Transcript

"I am Beau Timken, master sake sommelier, and in this segment we are speaking about the history of sake. And, more specifically in this context, war and sake. At the end of World War Two, there were Japanese troops really stationed all over the world. And, there was a massive rice shortage. Could not feed these guys. So, the brewers who were making sake, they said wait a minute. We cannot have you using rice to make this booze, we need to feed our troops. So, what they did is they basically suspended all of sake production to make food, consumption rice for these soldiers. In the process, though, they went incrementally. They said you can only use this much rice and then, you can only use this much rice. Eventually, they started making a rice that was almost synthetic. It was a booze, a rice-based booze that was not really sake at all. Now, sake and the military have a lot of positive and negative connotations. The famous Zero, the Kamikaze pilots, their last fluid that they would ever be in their bodies is they would take sake. Perhaps to numb their senses or what. Now, that said the Zero, the aircrafts that they flew also, during this ration time, where fuel was at such a minimum they actually were flying some of those Zeros on a distilled booze. Almost like a hard alcohol. We would call it a bio-fuel today, if you will. But, they were flying on that. And again, the ceremony, the honor, sake was the beverage of Japan. And so, as these soldiers were fighting for Japan, it was only natural that they would use and in ceremonies, drink and have sake be a part of, you know, their last days on earth if you will. So, the history of sake and the history of war tied pretty closely together."