My Fellow Inebriates,

After Sunday night’s humiliation by Miss P, my friend Scarybear—far from not being himself—has been even more of himself. Which is to say: preoccupied with annihilation while somehow giving off a stronger funk.

He wasn’t always this way. Scary came to the house two years before yours truly—before any of the other animals. He dominated for two years. He had attention; he had snacks; he had unlimited television. (Renting from a cruddy landlord back in 2005, my soon-to-be parents retaliated passive-agressively by running their plasma TV eighteen hours a day with only Scary in front of it.)

Alone watching the Space Channel, Scary became an expert on every iteration of Star Trek and Stargate, not to mention crap shows like Andromeda. And when Dad came home, Scary got to watch those shows again. He had things his way for a very, very long time. He was the bear.

In December 2005 everything changed. Who knew a small pink bundle could effect so sudden and absolute a coup? Home for maternity leave with P, my mum now controlled the TV, exposing Scary to reality shows, news, and, worst of all, dramas. She parked herself in front of the plasma, surfing randomly while baby P fed. If losing the Space Channel wasn’t dreadful enough for Scary, he had to witness Mum being milked and was often a baby-barf target.

All of which was compounded by an onslaught of new animals: ducks, elephants, frogs, and bears.

Everything had been perfect. And now it sucked.

It actually altered Scary’s mind. Who knows—maybe he was always an asshole and nobody knew it because he always got his way. But now that he wasn’t getting his way, he became angry. He became morose. In his head he reran episodes of sci-fi shows he’d seen enough times to memorize, obsessing about the hazards of space until those dangers seemed immediate enough to gobble him up.

Unable to get out of his obsessive rut, Scary couldn’t find another crutch. One time I suggested we join forces and open a bottle of GEKKEIKAN SAKE. He kicked my ass! After that he kicked my ass all the time, just for something to do.

Eventually the bottle did get opened, though, without Scary’s involvement. At 14.6% alcohol, it could have mellowed him out. GEKKEIKAN is one of three bottom-shelf sakes stocked at our neighborhood booze shop and distinct for being bottled in the U.S. rather than Japan. There its distinction ends.

At its comparatively low price point ($10.99 for 750mL), GEKKEIKAN is a likely offering at cheap sushi outlets where Japanese provenance is unimportant. It makes perfect sense for American producers to get in on the sake game, especially with a lackluster public appetite for beer. For many sushi aficionados, a meal without sake wouldn’t be a meal, and doubtless this mentality assists sake producers in keeping a market foothold. Whether people drink sake without sushi is another matter. If anything, sake’s tether to Japanese food is probably frustrating for North American marketers wishing to expand the product’s reach.

Sake divides neatly into two camps: cold and warm.

• Higher-end sake—the type found in small, picturesque bottles—meant to be drunk cold so as to appreciate its character. It is, after all, a type of wine, albeit made from rice.
• Lower-end sake—bottom-shelf offerings intended for copious consumption with Japanese cuisine and drunk warm to mask any disagreeable characteristics.

Along with HAKUTSURU and Takara, GEKKEIKAN falls into the latter category. Still, I thought I’d better try it both warm and cold because that way I’d get twice as much.

Now, I am freaking terrified of the stove. I had to rely on my mother to get the sake to its optimal temperature. Child’s play, you might think, but she needs to be watched; previously she’s forgotten a saucepan of sake on the burner and allowed the precious alcohol to evaporate.

When the sake is warm-to-hot without boiling, smooth grainy flavors waft generously from the glass. On the tongue it warms and expands with medium body and hints of fruit and herbs. Much of this charm is carried in warm vapors; the heat is pleasant and alluring. Once you let GEKKEIKAN sit and cool, however, the charm is reduced.

This is the problem with cheap sake. Optimal temperature forgives a lot in a cheap sake; imperfections hide behind a warming sensation. Dropping to room temperature exposes both its off-notes and its simplicity.

Naturally the solution is to pound it before it cools. Keeping GEKKEIKAN at optimal temperature is an exercise in chasing the dragon. You don’t want it to disappoint you, but its sweet spot is narrow. Not that sub-ideal temperatures render it undrinkable. GEKKEIKAN is mostly harmless, although it will wreck you if you pound it for the sake of maintaining that ideal. Of course, if you’ve let it cool and can’t reheat it, you might pound it just to be done with it. It’s not offensive enough to push away because the temperature isn’t right.

Either way, it’s a recipe for getting drunk quickly.

In just the way heat masks flaws in sake, sake (I’ve often thought) could mask flaws in Scarybear. Except he’d probably be an angry drunk.