We drove southwest this morning to Folsom, not to visit the prison but to check out the shopping and to pay a visit to Gekkeikan, the Sake brewing facility.  The company began brewing sake more than 370 years ago in Fushimi, Japan, and has been making sake in Folsom since 1989. Folsom was selected as the ideal place to brew the product due to its access to high-grade rice from the Sacramento Valley and quality water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The brewing facility is open to the public, there are viewing windows where you can watch the process of sake making. Unfortunately for us, we got there on a Friday at lunchtime and there wasn’t too much happening. We did get to see the machinery and learn about the brewing process though, and most importantly we got to sample the finished product.

Sake is made from rice to which water and yeast are added, and the fermentation process takes about a month. The Folsom facility produces 6 varieties of Sake and a plum wine, and we got to sample 4 of them. The lady who was pouring for us explained the process to us and wasn’t the least bit offended when I couldn’t drink more than a few sips of the product. It wasn’t that it was bad, it was just very alcoholly. The Zipang, which is a sparkling sake made in Japan was quite good, but the others were a bit too much for me. It was a cool place though, and they had a gigantic koi pond right around the facility with some enormous fish in, it was a lovely setting.

Mike: Ug, me stick to firewater! You keep SAKE!