If you take a mouthful of rice or potato and chew it, you will notice that the starches become thinner as you chew and it also gets progressively sweeter – this is the [enzyme] amylase slowly converting starches to sugar. ... The early Japanese people also understood this and used it to make simple alcohol. In the pre-rice days of the Jomon period, people chewed millet, buckwheat, acorns, chestnuts and other starchy foods to create a rough alcohol that was consumed for medicine and ceremonial uses. As rice growing technology was introduced from China near the close of the Jomon period, people naturally applied the same methods to producing alcohol from this new crop – thus Sake was born. This type of early Sake is known as "Kuchikami Sake" (kuchi – mouth, kamu – to chew).
Glug GlugIt's sake that Reimu made!♪It came out especially good this time!♪Glug GlugGonna brewwww it!♡Oh? This sake is delicious!Hm-hm...that silly girl, that's about all she has going for her.Come to think of it, isn't shrine maiden sake made from saliva?
