日本酒

In English, there are two ways to express 日本酒 (nihonshu): Rice wine or sake, pronounced /sʌ:kɪ:/ or /sækɪ/. Sake is not a popular drink in England and is difficult to buy. We can usually find sake in restaurants serving east Asian or south-east Asian cuisine. Sake in such restaurants is not always from Japan despite using the Japanese word sake 「酒」。 In fact, the first time I drank sake was in a Thai restaurant and the sake was from California!

I took these photos in May 2007. Can you guess where?

The barrels in the left photo look like wine barrels but I am not sure of the contents.