Tippsy sake; Best sake website

Buying Japanese sake has not been easy in the U.S., that was, however, until recently. Surely any wine/liquor store, either brick-and-mortar or on-line, carries some sake but if you are looking for a certain sake, you will not find it most of the time. Since turnover is usually low in regular liquor or wine  stores, your chances of getting old sake is high. Our Japanese grocery store carries a better collection of sake which is still limited and the prices tend to be on the high side. I regularly get cooking sake (Ozeki brewed in California) at a near-by liquor store but that is about it. Our house sake has been "Mu" daiginjo sake ”無” 大吟醸. To get a case of "Mu" on line or from brick-and-mortar stores required some efforts and wait time.  When we added  "Tengumai" daiginjo 天狗舞 大吟醸 to our house sake, it was more difficult still.

This was all solved when I came across the "Tippsy sake"  website last March (disclaimer: I am not associated with or getting any benefits from them except that I can now buy the sake I want on line). I guess when you get "tipsy", your finger hits "p" twice. I have bought 5-6 cases by now and I am happy to tell you that I am very satisfied with their selections, services and prices.

The below is the "sake shop" page. It has excellent collections of sake although some "cult" breweries are missing (which is not a negative by any means especially since these almost never get out of Japan and if they did probably would not be worth the price). You can search and filter the results in many ways. The below is "junmai" sake listed from low to high price.  The lowest price sake happens to be my go-to sake when we want warm sake; "Hakutsuru" junmai 白鶴純米.

The below is daiginjo listed from low to high price. I think the frist three are good ones with high CP (cost/performance) ratio. Tengumai "50" and Yaegaki "Mu" are, as I mentioned, our house cold sakes. Actually Nihon Sakari 日本盛 大吟醸,  which is the lowest priced daigiinjo, is not bad at all. Mu and Nihon Sakari are similar; very  clean, fruity but a bit on the  simple side, Tengumai has more complex flavor. Of course, Dassai "45" 獺祭４５ is a classic very fruity and popular daiginjo.

When choosing a particular sake,  one advantage of the web site is the detailed information concerning the sake that is available, such as the information shown below. I think this is for "Tengumai 50". Beside the flavor profile, you get more technical information like %alcohol, RPR (Rice  polishing ratio or "seimai-do" 精米度, for example daiginjo has to be more than 50%), SMV (Sake Meter value or "Nihonshu-do" 日本酒度 , +3 is neutral, the larger the number drier) etc. Appropriate serving temperatures and food pairing are also listed.

I am also impressed with their service. The sake is shipped from California, and took more than one week in the beginning but their processing has been getting better and takes 5-6 days to the East coast. During the summer months, they are careful to make sure the sake is handled appropriately and does not undergo a "hot soak" in the summer heat while being shipped cross country.  They ship it in a refrigerated truck/train to somewhere in NJ and then ship it to the customer using FedEx ground which is same as over-night shipping. This adds a few more days and the FedEx notification gets a bit screwed up but once the sake arrives in NJ, the notification is accurate. With all this service, shipping is free if you buy half a case or more. One time, the package was damage during shipping on the day it was supposedly to be delivered. I got a notification from FedEx that they were shipping it back to the sender. I contacted (emailed)  "Tippsy" and the customer service was wonderful  and re-shipped the order.

For me, this is the best place to buy sake. I recommend this site for anybody interested in buying sake. They also has the "sake box" subscription which I have not tried. Hope they will continued to be successful.