Both sake and awamori are made from rice.

If you already drink Japanese alcohol, the difference may seem obvious. But if you have never really explored either of them, they can easily look like variations on the same idea: two Japanese alcoholic drinks made from rice, with awamori simply being stronger and associated with Okinawa.

What is actually inside the bottle, however, is very different.

Sake retains many of the sugars, acids, amino acids, and other compounds created during fermentation. Awamori is distilled from that fermented liquid, leaving most of those non-volatile components behind while collecting alcohol and volatile aroma compounds.

The key difference, then, is not that both begin with rice. It is what happens after fermentation.

Sake is made by pressing the fermented mash. Awamori is made by distilling it.

That one difference changes what remains in the drink—and, from there, how it tastes, how its aromas behave, how it ages, and even how it works in cooking.

Rather than approaching sake and awamori through textbook definitions, this article looks at them through a simpler question:

What actually remains in the bottle?

Pressing or Distilling

Sake begins with steamed rice, koji, water, and yeast.

Koji is rice inoculated with a mold called Aspergillus oryzae. Its enzymes convert the starch in rice into sugar, while yeast converts that sugar into alcohol. In sake brewing, these two processes happen at the same time in the same tank, a method known as multiple parallel fermentation.

Once fermentation is complete, the mash—called moromi—is pressed, separating the liquid sake from the remaining solids.

Awamori also begins with rice, but the process is different.

It uses black koji mold, and traditionally all of the rice is converted into koji before water and yeast are added. After fermentation, the mash is not pressed into the finished drink. It is put through a pot still.

Under Japanese liquor law, the distinction is equally clear: sake is classified as seishu, while awamori belongs to the category of single-distilled shochu.

In simple terms:

Sake is fermented rice liquid that has been pressed.
Awamori is made by distilling volatile compounds out of fermented rice mash.

What Does Distillation Change?

During distillation, the fermented mash is heated. Compounds that evaporate readily—including alcohol and many aroma molecules—rise as vapor and are then cooled back into liquid.

Sugars, amino acids, peptides, and many other compounds that do not readily evaporate remain largely in the still.

In sake, those compounds stay in the liquid after pressing.

The difference becomes easier to see when we look at basic composition.

According to Japan’s Standard Tables of Food Composition:

Per 100 g Junmai sake Single-distilled shochu
Carbohydrate 3.6 g 0 g
Protein 0.4 g 0 g
Alcohol 12.3 g 20.5 g

The “0 g” figures do not mean that absolutely none of these compounds can be present. They indicate amounts below the reporting threshold or levels that were not detected.

Even so, the contrast is clear.

One published analysis found that junmai sake contained around 4.8% extract and about 2.0% reducing sugars. If we very roughly treat one liter as weighing one kilogram, that corresponds to around 48 grams of dissolved material other than water and alcohol, including roughly 20 grams of sugar.

The exact numbers vary from sake to sake, but the important point is the scale: sake contains flavor-active non-volatile compounds in gram quantities.

Most of these sugars and amino acids do not make the journey through the still when awamori is distilled.

You can taste the consequence.

With sake, sweetness, acidity, umami, bitterness, and other sensations often remain on the palate after swallowing.

With awamori, alcohol and aroma tend to appear more prominently, while the taste on the tongue often recedes more quickly.

This is not simply a matter of one being “lighter” and the other “heavier.”

Sake carries the flavor compounds of the fermented mash into the finished drink. Awamori leaves much of that material behind and brings alcohol and volatile aroma compounds to the foreground.

Distillation changes the center of gravity of the drink.

In Awamori, Aroma Takes Center Stage

Because sake retains sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and other fermentation-derived compounds, much of its structure comes from what we physically taste on the tongue: sweetness, acidity, bitterness, and umami.

Awamori works differently.

During distillation, much of that non-volatile material remains in the still, while alcohol and volatile aromatic compounds are collected. As a result, aroma plays an especially important role in the way awamori tastes.

There is the aroma that reaches your nose before you drink. Then the aroma that expands with the alcohol as the liquid enters your mouth. Finally, there is the aroma that rises retronasally after you swallow.

Much of the pleasure of awamori lies in this movement of aroma.

That does not mean awamori “has no taste.” A better way to think about it is that, with fewer non-volatile flavor compounds left behind, differences in aroma can become more prominent in defining the character of the drink.

So what kinds of aromas are we talking about?

An analysis of aged commercial awamori by the Okinawa Industrial Technology Center found relatively high concentrations of higher alcohols such as isoamyl alcohol and isobutyl alcohol. By contrast, two compounds strongly associated with the fruity aromas of ginjo sake—isoamyl acetate and ethyl caproate—were present at much lower concentrations.

A few reference values illustrate the difference:

Per liter Sake Awamori
Isoamyl alcohol 70–270 mg 517 mg
Isoamyl acetate up to about 15 mg 2.3 mg
Ethyl caproate up to about 11 mg 0.76 mg

These figures should not be treated as a direct competition between the two drinks. The samples differ in alcohol strength and analytical conditions, and awamori itself varies considerably from producer to producer.

But they do show something useful:

Awamori is not simply “a stronger-aroma version of sake.”

It does not take the apple- and banana-like aromas familiar from some ginjo sake and turn up the volume. Fermentation creates a wide range of volatile compounds, distillation selects and concentrates them in its own way, and aging changes that aromatic composition again.

There is one more complication: the compound present in the greatest quantity is not necessarily the one we smell most strongly. Different aroma molecules have very different sensory thresholds, so tiny amounts of one compound can sometimes have more impact than much larger amounts of another.

Still, the broad contrast is useful:

Sake carries the “taste” of the fermented mash. Awamori brings the “aroma” captured through distillation to the front.

The same rice can therefore produce two drinks with very different centers of gravity.

The Same Aroma Compound Can Be a Fault in One Drink and an Asset in Another

Rice cell walls contain a compound called ferulic acid.

Through microbial activity, ferulic acid can be converted into 4-vinylguaiacol, or 4-VG, an aromatic compound that can smell spicy or grain-like at low concentrations and smoky or medicinal at higher ones.

In sake, 4-VG is generally treated as an undesirable aroma.

The Hiroshima Prefectural Government describes it as a substance whose formation should be prevented, and sake producers take measures to avoid its development.

Sake yeast itself does not perform this conversion. Other microorganisms—such as contaminating microbes associated with koji or yeasts other than normal sake yeast—can be involved.

In other words, sake brewers generally try not to let this aroma appear.

In awamori, the same molecule can play a very different role.

Research has shown that some acid-producing bacteria present during awamori fermentation can convert ferulic acid into 4-VG. During aging, some of that 4-VG can then be transformed into vanillin.

Vanillin is one of the main compounds associated with the sweet aroma of vanilla. It contributes to the rounded, sweet-smelling character found in some aged awamori.

Recent research has even explored whether the microorganisms present during fermentation could be selected to influence the amount of 4-VG produced.

The same molecule, originating from the same rice, can therefore be something to suppress in one tradition and a possible starting point for desirable aging aromas in another.

Calling both drinks simply “rice alcohol” hides precisely this kind of difference.

Cooking Makes the Difference Easier to See

The contrast also becomes clear in the kitchen.

The following is a broad interpretation based on their composition rather than a claim that every dish behaves in exactly the same way.

When sake is added to a simmered dish, the alcohol eventually evaporates, but sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and other compounds remain.

They can contribute sweetness, umami, body, and a softer impression of saltiness or acidity.

Awamori leaves much less of this kind of material behind after its alcohol evaporates.

Instead, its relatively high alcohol content and aromatic character can have a strong effect on the aroma of the food without adding the same kind of sweetness or weight to the cooking liquid.

That helps explain why awamori works so naturally in Okinawan dishes such as rafute braised pork, goat dishes, and preparations involving strongly flavored meats and offal.

With strongly aromatic ingredients, the alcohol and aroma of awamori rise dramatically during cooking, while the liquid itself does not become especially sweet or heavy.

In a simmered dish where the cooking broth itself is central, sake can play a different role. Its sugars, amino acids, and acids remain behind and become part of the broth.

Replace sake in a recipe with awamori and you may find that the aroma becomes more pronounced while the sauce or broth feels thinner.

As a rough way of putting it:

Awamori clears and lifts through aroma. Sake adds and rounds through taste.

Both can be used to manage strong food aromas, but they do not do the same job.

On the Shelves at Nagahama 88

Aside from wine, our selection at Nagahama 88 is centered mainly on junmai sake.

At the moment, we carry only one awamori producer: Tsukayama Shuzo in Nago, Okinawa, maker of Kokka.

For a liquor shop in Okinawa, that is a very small awamori selection.

It is not because we consider awamori less interesting. We simply prefer to stock a bottle only when we feel able to explain why it deserves its place on the shelf.

Tsukayama Shuzo was founded in 1924. Its traditional red-tiled brewery, built around 1928, was designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 2009.

Awamori is still made inside that historic building today.

Kokka 3-Year-Old Kusu is bottled at 43% ABV.

That number can look intimidating, but we think 43% is actually one of the best ways to experience the full character of this particular awamori: slowly, in small sips.

It also takes dilution well. Add water and the aromatic outline remains surprisingly intact rather than collapsing as the strength falls. To us, that suggests a spirit with a strong underlying structure.

If you want to compare sake and awamori directly, however, bringing them to roughly the same alcohol strength can make the difference easier to understand.

Adding around two parts water to one part of a 43% awamori brings it close to 15% ABV, roughly the strength of many sakes.

Try them side by side with the same food.

Then pay attention not just to the first sip, but to what remains after you swallow.

With sake, flavor tends to remain on the palate.

With awamori, the taste recedes while the aroma continues to linger.

Once you experience that difference, “they are both made from rice” begins to mean something very different.

Conclusion

The difference between sake and awamori is not really explained by the raw ingredient alone.

The decisive split comes after fermentation: pressing versus distillation.

Sake keeps sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and other compounds from the fermented mash in the finished drink.

Awamori leaves much of that material behind in the still and collects alcohol together with volatile aroma compounds.

From that distinction come differences in palate, aroma, aging, and the way each drink behaves with food.

Both begin with rice.

But pressing one and distilling the other creates two remarkably different drinks.

That is what makes comparing sake and awamori so interesting.

FAQ

What is the main difference between sake and awamori when you drink them?

Sake often combines sweetness, acidity, umami, and bitterness, with flavor lingering on the palate after you swallow.

Awamori tends to put alcohol and aroma further forward, while the taste on the tongue often recedes more quickly.

As a broad shorthand, sake leaves flavor; awamori leaves aroma.

There are, of course, delicate and clean-finishing sakes, just as aged awamori can feel rich and rounded.

Which is sweeter, sake or awamori?

Sake contains sugar, so some of its sweetness is literal sweetness perceived by the tongue. Acidity also matters, which means a sake with significant sugar may still taste relatively dry if its acidity is high.

Awamori contains very little sugar. When an awamori seems sweet, that impression can come from fruit-like or vanilla-like aromas, alcohol texture, and the softness that develops during aging.

So, broadly speaking, sweetness in sake is more often taste-based, while sweetness in awamori is more often aroma- and texture-based.

Which has the stronger aroma, sake or awamori?

There is no single answer.

Awamori usually has a higher alcohol content, which can make its aroma rise more forcefully from the glass. Some sake, particularly aromatic ginjo styles, can also have very pronounced fruit aromas.

Aroma intensity also depends on sensory thresholds, not simply on how much of a compound is present.

Awamori is therefore not simply a more aromatic form of sake. The types and combinations of aromas are different.

Can sake and awamori be used in cooking in the same way?

Both can be used, but they will not produce the same result.

After sake is heated and its alcohol evaporates, sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and other components remain, adding sweetness, umami, and body.

Awamori leaves fewer non-volatile flavor compounds behind, but its alcohol and aroma can strongly influence the smell of a dish.

As a broad distinction, sake adds and rounds flavor, while awamori lifts and reorganizes aroma.

Do both sake and awamori age?

Yes, but they age differently.

In sake, sugars, amino acids, acids, and other components continue to react over time, changing its color, aroma, and flavor. Aging can create deeper savory and mature aromas, though poor storage can also lead to deterioration.

Awamori becomes softer and changes aromatically as it ages. Under current labeling rules, only awamori aged entirely for at least three years can be labeled kusu, or aged awamori.

Why is awamori usually stronger than sake?

Sake is produced by fermenting rice and pressing the resulting mash. Many commercial sakes are around 15% ABV.

Awamori is distilled after fermentation. Distillation allows alcohol to be collected at a considerably higher concentration, so many commercial awamori are sold at 25% or 30% ABV, while aged or undiluted versions can exceed 40%.

That difference in alcohol strength also contributes to the way awamori releases aroma and the way sake leaves flavor on the palate.

Related Articles

Featured Bottle

Kokka 3-Year-Old Kusu, 43% ABV

Tsukayama Shuzo / Nago, Okinawa

A single-distilled Okinawan awamori aged entirely for at least three years.

At 43% ABV it is powerful, but we think sipping it slowly at full strength is one of the best ways to experience the aromas and character that develop through awamori aging.

Available in store and online.

References

Sources for the production methods, composition figures, labeling rules, and research findings mentioned above.

Alcohol is for adults of legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.