Why You Should Stop Drinking Sake Bombs (Seriously)

In recent years, . However, the country is still best known for its classic dishes and products like sushi and tea. One of the most notorious things about Japanese food and drink culture is sake, and more specifically, sake bombs.

The alcohol, which is made by fermenting rice, is a delicious and unique drink from Japan that many Americans have started indulging in over the past few years. For many of these Westerners, the sake bomb, which sees the consumer drop a shot of sake into a glass of beer, is an exciting beverage as it provides them with a strong drink that contains a truly unique combination of flavors. Sake bombs are usually served by balancing a shot of sake on two chopsticks that rest on top of a glass of beer.



Drinkers often pound the table and yell until the shot falls off the chopsticks and into the beer. They then drink the beverage as quickly as possible. Those knowledgeable about sake know that the sake bomb likely isn't a Japanese creation.

In fact, sake bombs are hardly ever drunk by those living in Japan. It is high time others considered following this example. Apart from obscuring the taste and flavor of the sake itself, sake bombs are downright disrespectful thanks to how they obscure the beverage's characteristics and inspire raucous behavior.

In a nutshell, sake bombs are not what this wonderful beverage should be known for. The problem with sake bombs For starters, the theatrics that typically come before consuming a sake bomb are generally considered to be rude and obnoxious, which won't come as much of a surprise to even the biggest defenders of sake bombs. After all, few things are quite as unpleasant as sitting next to a table that is being pounded on and screamed at.

However, the problem with sake bombs goes beyond the theatrics and is more to do with how disrespectful it is to the sake itself. Sake — better known in Japan as nihonshu (日本酒) — has a long and storied history that dates back thousands of years to the creation of doburoku (濁酒). ( is in the filtering; sake is filtered whereas doburoku is unfiltered.

) Because of this long history, and the beverage's detail-oriented and unique production process, sake is held in very high esteem in Japan. Here, it is considered sacred and is often used in religious ceremonies. After learning this, it's easy to see why some people view sake bombs as incredibly disrespectful.

That being said, if you can't shake your love of drinking sake and beer together, you aren't completely out of luck. Instead of drinking sake bombs, sake experts recommend you either drink the beer and sake side by side as you would with a . If you are absolutely set on drinking them together, pour the sake into your beer instead of hammering on the table.

People sitting nearby will thank you for it. Recommended.