Hi @beefnoguy,
Thanks for the detailed notes!
The Born Muroka Nama Genshu that you originally brought up… So is that on any menus here in LA?
That other Born Sake is $400 per bottle?! 
worth it?
Sorry don’t know about the Muroka Nama Genshu. Call ahead for the more well known places and ask before you bring your own.
Born Yume Wa Masayume “Dreams Come True” - it’s a damn fine excellent sake (aged 5 years) and do put this on your sake bucket list. The bottle is gorgeous too.
It’s closer to retail at Kinjiro (their price is $280, might be lowest restaurant price in town). Aburiya Raku charges $520. Might be able to find one in LA (mail order or retail) from $220 to $240. It only comes in a 1 liter size.
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if ipse allows it here, could you summarize in a sentence or two what makes these bottles so pricey? the process? the rarity? limited supply? costly ingredients?
just curious.
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Tempura Endo has it too…
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I’ll take a stab at this one but it will take more than two sentences.
As far as what you pay at retail: sake generally costs on the average, double retail in the USA once it leaves Japan. There are exceptions (where it’s 3x to 4x retail and that’s up to the business) The Dassai Beyond for example, can be purchased in Tokyo for around US$330 give or take. If you can find it for $600 give or take in California, it’s in theory not too bad of a bad price. It’s limited, it’s hard to get (unlike the Dassai 50, 39, 23 you can easily find at most Nijiya and Mitsuwa in Northern and Southern California) Restaurants charge a significant markup in the order of 2x (US retail that is) or 3x so not that different from wine. One can only guess what the wholesale discount is for those that do not have an account with the distributors. It’s not surprising to see the Beyond priced between $1200 to $1500 in a super high end place in New York or San Francisco Bay Area (particularly if they already have or are working towards having a star).
As to why some of these sake bottles are extra pricey (even before they leave Japan for export), it’s a combination of
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fame/brand recognition. Dassai may be famous, but Born is supposedly loved by government officials, diplomats and royalty, to the point it’s literally iconic and possibly the choice of sake for state dinners etc. Though I’ve heard conflicting reports that Kokuryu (Black Dragon) is another brand super loved by the royal family. Those who have won gold medal in competitions (e.g. International Wine Challenge) in the past tend to be far more special.
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produced in limited quantities, particularly if the quality is known to be nothing short of excellent, or if a seasonal release.
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Daiginjo and Junmai Daiginjo sake (with rice polished to 50% or below) are far more labor/time/process intensive to produce. Polishing sake rice to below 50% is not easy, and even 35% can be hitting it close. Anything lower is even more challenging. One can only imagine how many days it would take to polish rice down to below 23% (there are two bottles out there where the rice is polished down to 9%/8% and one I think is 7%, super insane). This Born “Dreams Come True” is aged at very low temperature for five years, but yet the liquid is crystal clear, and doesn’t have the amber tones of a typical Japanese koshu (sometimes aged more than 5 years and upwards of ten…think of a Sauternes or Madeira in color). The taste is really something unique and special, and also greatly appeals to wine drinkers. So yes, definitely goes on any sake lover’s bucket list! I’m sure it has won gold medals in competitions before in the past. Apparently President Obama received a bottle of Born Dreams Come True as a gift during one of his Japan visits, though I heard something about Abe pouring him some Kamotsuru Tokusen Gold (a cheaper low end sake of the Kamotsuru lineup, the brewery is in Hiroshima), maybe even at Jiro which I found very odd…
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Some of the seasonal rare very limited sakes are made via more time consuming and painstaking methods (e.g. letting the rice/yeast/alcohol/water mixture gravity drip instead of mashed/pressed). It also doesn’t help when the US distributor of a brewery’s partial lineup decides to allocate the rare seasonal releases (some go directly to restaurants, markup time). Born Dreams Come True, is not one of them, but there are others out there.
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supply and demand. There are some sakes out there that are so limited (e.g. really small brewery with very little output, but so famous where restaurants/consumers in other countries are buying them as rabidly as die hard sake fans in Japan, because in places like Hong Kong or Singapore, if an establishment does not stock something as good from the brewery for their own business, they are not being competitive), they can now only be purchased via lottery in Japan, if at all.
With that said, this is all very subjective. Personally I would want to have the Born “Dreams Come True” again, for the right occasion, and more importantly with the right group of people and with the right food to pair with it. Can’t say the same for the Dassai Beyond for example (but still worth trying once in your lifetime if you can and are able to, better yet fly to Japan and maybe see if you can purchase a glass to taste at Dassai Bar before buying).
Lastly, it’s actually not so strange to see some really really nice and somewhat pricey sake at sake bars, or certain izakaya in Japan or parts of the USA. It seems outrageous to eat izakaya nibbles with high end sake, but in reality, it can be a fantastic match and bring out the flavor profiles of the sake with the right food. The difference is that in the USA/California you will not see the high end bottles offered by the glass or cup (bottle only), but you might in some establishments in Japan (the super crazy specialists will stock and pour you a flight of a 3 to 4 year vertical from a super expensive high end sake, e.g. a Daiginjo, and the master might give you a chilled tomato dish or some shiokara to go with it)
So maybe Dreams Come True might work at Aburiya Raku, the fruit forwardness of this sake might go well with some of the savory grilled items and maybe even the foie gras chawanmushi (using the classic Sauternes / foie pairing as “inspiration”). Raku’s setback is the lack of the more typical otsumami / shuko that are meant to go with sake (e.g. takowasa, shiokara, shuto with cream cheese like at Kinjiro etc). One just has to put aside the fact that the alcohol is 3x or 4x the cost of the meal… but when you are buzzed and happy with good company and food, nothing else matters.
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Hi @beefnoguy,
Excellent thoughts. Thanks for sharing! 
So Born’s Dreams Come True 5 Year Aged might not work with many dishes at Raku? How do you think it would pair with a traditional omakase at Mori or Shunji?
Or what’s the most ideal Japanese restaurant in L.A. that could actually work with it? Thanks.
Excellent post @beefnoguy going to try to score a bottle of Born “Dreams Come True”.
I’m a novice when it comes to sake, any suggestions for abut $100 that one can find relatively easily retail?
In case this goes off topic, there are some good recs in this older thread Sake, How do you choose?
Feel free to post more specific questions on there. To answer the question, I would have to play the salesman like role and ask things like
- what do you plan on eating/enjoying the sake with?
- what other sakes have you tried that you like?
- what is it about those sakes you particularly enjoy
etc
since taste is purely subjective.
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It will and should work at Aburiya Raku (followed by, whether you are willing to pay that much at Raku to enjoy a bottle).
What I’m saying is that Raku’s setback (which is a minor one to me given the nature of the restaurant) is the lack of “shuko”/“otsumami” which are snack bites designed to be eaten with sips of sake. Some of these bites are maybe a bit too hardcore for some (e.g. “chinmi” like konowata (sea cucumber innards), or certain kinds of shuto where the fermentation smell can be overwhelming), particularly where there are varying textures and tastes (chinmi tend to be more salty and for some items, slimey and/or sticky). My comment was more about having a wider variety to fully enjoy the sake with. But the grilled items, sashimi, salads, some of the fried stuff, the foie based items, sashimi…they will all go great together with the Born “Dreams Come True”.
It will definitely work at Mori and Shunji too.
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Hi @beefnoguy,
Ah I see. Thanks.
From what you told me it seems like it might be cheaper to just buy Dreams Come True at retail / discount and then paying corkage fee at a place like Shunji, Mori or Raku?
Probably worth getting the FTC wine lovers perspectives on this one. I’m just but one voice.
I would highly recommend checking the restaurant’s corkage policies (and availability) before doing so. Some places will explicitly state that bottles are accepted so long as it is not something they already carry (and even if they don’t state as such, some wine drinkers and wine somms find it to be in very poor taste if a customer brings in something the restaurant has, since the act is also a means to undercut their margins, so it’s not a bad idea to play it safe). Most corkage policies apply to 720 or 750 mL bottles (Dreams Come True is 1000 mL/1L so they may reserve the right to charge more) and some have limit how many bottles you can bring. Some places out there might waive corkage for one bottle if you buy one from them.
I don’t know about Aburiya Raku’s policy specifically, but I’m willing to bet they would rather not and probably forbid a customer not bring in the Born Dreams Come True and pay corkage, since they already have it for $520 ($130 for a glass!). Can call and ask to be safe…
If you are really tight with ownership and management of a restaurant, some claim that if you share a glass with them, they will waive corkage…but those are mostly very rare cases. And for those who get away with it, they probably have purchased alcohol directly from the restaurant numerous times compared to the number of times they bring in super nice bottles. Some places no matter how good and frequent of a customer you are, will never waive corkage (also because they can’t make exceptions since they are heavily scrutinized, and have to make every penny count).
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I almost forgot: n/naka has it. And it goes very well with the light clear soups which Chef Niki serve up…
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Thanks again @beefnoguy K K. I forgot about the angle of if the restaurant already had it on their menu (you can tell I don’t bring my own bottles out to restaurants LOL 
).
And thanks for the heads up that Dreams Come True is 1000 mL! I thought the 720 mL bottles were already hard enough to finish with a few friends, 1000 mL for such a high quality Sake feels like a waste (after you open it), unless you had a larger group perhaps?
Their website’s beverage list is dated 2013 (?), though I do see Born Muroka Nama Genshu (the nice blue bottle) listed on there. Is this something they carry regularly?
Grabbed a solo seat last week, which is much easier now that Resy can be used to make reservations. Very grateful that it is walking distance from my pad, but still a bit cost prohibitive to make it a regular thing. I think I’ve gotten settled into a few things that are very comforting to me. The crispy asparagus okaki is a perfect little snack and I am very fond of almost any treatment of chicken on the menu. Rather than wrack my brain over which of the sashmi du jour selections to choose, I have been asking for a sashmi tasting/sampler over my last few visits which has really hit the spot. I like dessert, but other than Hatfield and Swindle, I rarely crave any on a regular basis. The exception is Raku’s creamy, fluffy cheesecake. I over ordered for myself this time, but I could not let myself leave without forcing this down my gullet. Along with a few sips of hot hojicha, its a great way to end a delicious meal.
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Hi @djquinnc,
Nice report.
Thanks for the tip on the Sashimi Tasting! I had no idea you could do that. I’ll try that next time. 
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New Hours for Aburiya Raku:
From September 2016:
Now Open for Lunch!
Lunch:
Mon - Fri, 12 pm - 2:30 pm
Dinner:
Mon - Thur, 6 pm - 11 pm
Fri - Sat, 6 pm - 12 am
They have a website now:
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