Where to buy sake from in Canberra?

Thanks Cring! Yep, Alvin’s Drunken and Bruised, been planning to give it a go for a while now, but lacked the Shaoshing (and mirin, come to think of it). It sounds really different and well worth cooking. Recipe makes me drool so taht’s always a good sign. I will check out this grocer in Dickson.

Sorry for the double post in advance

@ EvanJames – You’re looking at this (http://goo.gl/YYKWO) recipe, aren’t you? Xiao Xing or Shaoxing cooking rice wine can be bought at Chinese grocers, just like cooking sake can. Since I’m not so familiar with it, I’d ask the counter staff to point it out. My sister has substituted some Kylie Kwong recipes with Dry Sherry. I think the next time I’m at an Asian grocer that this is the next thing I’ll need to buy!

Mirin (???) is different from sake – it is distilled from a sweet rice. It is orange in colour and will be packaged differently to sake.

I recommend getting a plain old cooking sake (???) for your teriyaki chicken. It will still have that lovely gourmet flavour but the cooking sake is more versatile and definitely easier on the hip pocket. Save the better stuff like Go-shu and Choya for drinking!

For the cooking sake, go to the aforementioned grocer on Woolley St (2 doors down from Tak Kee Inn). They’ll have big bottles of cooking sake along with other direct-from-Japan condiments (furikake, gyoza dipping sauce, etc). The brand you’re looking for is Japan Food Corp (http://www.jfcaustralia.com.au/index.html) – the bottles will have a red “Wine Food” logo. When I was last at the grocer, they had plenty of cooking sake bottles left but were out of mirin. I’m pretty sure they’ll have it back in stock soon – otherwise, ask the counter staff, or get a smaller bottle to tide you over. The bottles of cooking sake and mirin are $5.50 each and I use them regularly. The cooking sake will have a blue label and the mirin will have a pink label. From memory the bottles are 500mL in size. They are absolutely essential to any household that cooks Asian food from scratch 🙂 The particular one I’m recommending you is not the best of the best of the best, but I and my fiance still find the dishes I make using them very tasty and you can’t go past $5.50 for value.

While you’re at it, and if you’re going to get into Japanese cooking, get yourself a little jar of Dashi Soup stock (???) – they’re $7.50 and bring your batches of beef bowl (??) and sukiyaki (????) to life.

I can also recommend a book for Japanese cooking – http://goo.gl/pq6DC – it has all the recipes in both Japanese and English but, more importantly, it has an awesome explanation of all of the ingredients used for Japanese cooking, as well as step by step guides on how to use certain ingredients (i.e. all the different types of tofu). The site I’ve linked you is a Japanese one so if you’re interested and want help ordering it, post here saying as much and I’m happy to help you order it 🙂

Hope this helps!! 🙂

Zeital said :

you can pick a nice sake from costco for cheap. other then that your local grog shop should have it as well

I was going to suggest Costco but you already did. I noticed they had quite a few different sorts in the booze display. But for cooking probably better to get something cheap. i’m still wondering where you get that shaoshing cooking wine to make Drunken and Bruised (Masterchef).

madcow22 said :

Thanks for the suggestions. It is for teriyaki chicken. The recipe also calls for mirin so i cant substitute.

For that, in a pinch, I use shaoxing wine instead. (Cringe, for personal consumption only).

Go-shu is Aussie sake available in a few stores (including Plonk @ Fyshwick Markets) and is relatively cheap – but it’s also quite good for the price.

Plonk also has several other interesting sakes from small, craft (sake) breweries they’re a little more exxie but are lovely. (maybe too good cooking though?)

Also, this isn’t a shameless plug as I no longer work @ Plonk 🙂

Thanks for the suggestions. It is for teriyaki chicken. The recipe also calls for mirin so i cant substitute.

you can get Sake from Dan Murphies for around $14 per bottle

Dan Murphy’s and First Choice tend to have 2 or 3 different types of sake. I would recommend getting the cheapest if you’re just cooking with it, but if you wish to drink it too you’re looking at about $30-40 a bottle.

I’m sure other rioters will have better suggestions for nice sake. My partner drinks the sake, I stick to Japanese Plum Wine… yum.

you can pick a nice sake from costco for cheap. other then that your local grog shop should have it as well