Sake is an alcoholic beverage with 320 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is 1-pentanethiol. It pairs most strongly with miso, sharing 51 flavor compounds. Sake appears in 221 recipes, most commonly in japanese cuisine.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Sake's inventory contains 89. Most of the other 231 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 77 more — showing top 12 by class and threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Sake's 320 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
230 of 320 are distinctive to sake — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in sake — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Sake and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Sake side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
Yamahai-brewed sake, a traditional Japanese rice wine fermented with naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria, has been understudied regarding its aroma compound profiles and bacte... Read abstract →
In response to the growing interest in less conventional alcoholic beverages, this study aimed to identify novel yeast strains suitable for sake production, with a focus on their p... Read abstract →
Vanillin is naturally occurring in various food products, including alcoholic beverages; however, its contribution to the aroma of sake is unclear. In this study, an HPLC-MS/MS qua... Read abstract →
Fermented foods from different raw materials (fruits, cereals, milk, etc [...]. Read abstract →
Sake is a traditional Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice and water, fermented by the filamentous fungi Aspergillus oryzae and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yeast stra... Read abstract →