Sake In some regions, the first sips of toso are taken in order of age, from the youngest to the eldest. Sake , also spelled "saké" ( ), also referred to as a Japanese rice wine, is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Unlike wine, in which alcohol is produced by fermenting sugar that is naturally present in fruit, typically grapes, sake is produced by a brewing process more akin to that of beer, where starch is converted into sugars which ferment into alcohol. The brewing process for "sake" differs from the
Brewing of time; brewing yeast strains act slower, but tend to tolerate higher alcohol concentrations (normally 12–15% abv is the maximum, though under special treatment some ethanol-tolerant strains can be coaxed up to around 20%). Modern quantitative genomics has revealed the complexity of "Saccharomyces" species to the extent that yeasts involved in beer and wine production commonly involve hybrids of so-called pure species. As such, the yeasts involved in what has been typically called top-cropping or top-fermenting ale may be both "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" and complex hybrids of "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" and "Saccharomyces kudriavzevii". Three notable ales, Chimay, Orval and Westmalle, are fermented