Why do we drink sake at New Year's?

Happy New Year 2022 ⛩

I'm Ayako Yoshida of bien.

Did you spend the New Year relaxing with good sake and good food?

This New Year, I enjoyed a Year of the Tiger sake from Tenryo Shuzo in Gero City, Gifu Prefecture, who have long looked after us.

For osechi dishes, it has to be sake 🍶

When you think of New Year, you think of sake.

Didn't you gather with relatives at your grandparents' house over New Year?

Watching the adults drinking lots of food and sake from under the kotatsu,

by the time I was old enough to remember,

I was secretly sneaking little licks from the sake cups the adults were drinking 😋

Of course back then I didn't understand a single bit of what sake tasted like,

just that it was a drink that made my tongue tingle.

And now I've become someone who loves sake,

which makes growing up a mysterious thing indeed.

So, why is it sake at New Year, in the first place?

In Japan, sake has been used at all ceremonial occasions — weddings, funerals, and so on — since long ago.

That's because it's connected to Shinto rituals.

At New Year you go to a shrine for hatsumode, right?

So why is it sake at Shinto rituals?

Many of you have probably seen the film "Your Name" (Kimi no Na wa),

and as in one scene of that film,

long ago, shrine maidens would chew rice in their mouths and offer it to the gods in a jar.

The rice chewed in the mouth, as months and years pass in the jar,

naturally ferments and becomes sake.

But please — try not to picture the mouth-chewed sake too much (laughs).

If you look online, there are people who actually make and study mouth-chewed sake,

but as you can lightly imagine, it's certainly not hygienic (laughs).

Especially in this age of COVID, absolutely not!

Even aside from COVID, though.

If you made mouth-chewed sake from a popular idol, it might just sell like crazy, though!

I've digressed a bit,

but this is how sake came to be used as a message tool by which human thoughts and wishes reach the gods.

At festivals, people pray for a bountiful year and that disaster won't befall the region.

In Shinto wedding ceremonies, sake carries the meaning of praying to the gods for the family's happiness and sealing the vow.

And so, drinking sake at New Year

as a means of conveying your aspirations and wishes for the year to the gods,

it's something that has taken root in the Japanese soul.

In a sense, it's a sacred drink.

But normally I don't think about any of that stiff stuff at all when I drink (laughs).

My specialty is always drinking happily and deliciously with the people I love!

Now that I've started writing this blog,

I'll occasionally be serious and reconsider what sake truly is.

It was a New Year in which I returned to the origin and looked at sake afresh.

Let's make this a fun year with delicious sake again ♫

I wish you all a wonderful 2022 ☆

I look forward to your continued support this year.