Hanami 花見 in DC with the "Cristal of Sake"

I'm not sure I'm in love with the term "the Cristal of sake," but never the less, as In The Capital reports, Born Yume wa Masayume is just that, having been gifted to President Obama from Shinzo Abe, and the preferred tipple of unnamed Japanese celebs.

Not a celeb?

Well, if you are in the Washington D.C. area, and you've got deep pockets, you have a chance to try some small-run premium sake, possibly even meet the brewers.

After a winter like the one we had in the northeast, who doesn't want to celebrate spring?

The National Cherry Blossom Festival is underway in D.C. and this Thursday, April 03 there will be a tasting of premium sake at the Carnegie Library. But, you'll need to buy tickets, and they don't come cheap: they start at $100. If I was paying that much, I hope they are generous with the pours. Still, if I were there, I'd try to find some real estate beneath some real cherry blossoms and drink my sake there.

I've got blossoms, now I just need some Born.

Some high profile breweries will be there including Katou Kichibee Shouten, makers of Born, from Fukui, Niigata's Asahi Shuzo (pouring Kubota 10,000 Celebrations), and Iwate's Nanbu Bijin (Nama Tokubetsu Junmai). 

In a perfect world, I'd be there on a press pass, but alas, I'll have to find my own bottle, and my own blossoms.