伦敦——日本南部一家有一百多年历史的清酒厂的老板七田谦介(Kensuke Shichida)，在伦敦的餐馆里度过了头晕目眩的一周。他品尝了各种充满异国风情又令人费解的菜式：酒吧餐、厨师汉堡、法式大餐、安格斯牛肉，还有柠汁腌鱼生。

　　The experience left him slightly bewildered and slightly ill, he said, suffering from a food hangover.

　　这场体验让他有点困惑，还有点不适，七田谦介说，就好像经历了一次由食物引发的宿醉。

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　　But Mr. Shichida, 43, is on a mission, he said, to bring his family-brewed sake to European restaurants and pair it with Western cuisine, which means charting new territory. It is an exercise of necessity. Japan is proud of its sake heritage, but sales have been falling for decades, and Mr. Shichida and a number of other brewers are trying to help reverse its decline before it is too late.

　　现年43岁的七田谦介说，他现在有一个目标，就是要把自己家族酿制的清酒推广到欧洲的餐馆，让它与西餐搭配，开辟新的市场。七田谦介这么做实属无奈。清酒一直是日本人引以为傲的传统饮品，但它的销量几十年来却在不断下滑。趁现在还不算太晚，七田谦介和另外几位酿酒商都在设法扭转颓势。

　　“I’d be lying if I said pairing sake with burgers didn’t hurt my pride as a Japanese,” he admitted at a recent dinner, hesitantly poking a piece of lamb kidney and sweetbreads — a first for him — with his fork. “But we need to be exploring this path to survive as a brewer.”

　　“如果我说，清酒配汉堡不会伤害我作为日本人的自豪感，那是在撒谎，”七田谦介最近在一次晚餐时承认道。他一边说着，一边用叉子迟疑地戳向一片羊腰和一堆羊杂。那是他第一次吃羊杂。“但作为酿酒商要存活下来，我们必须尝试这条路。”

　　“Sake is surprisingly versatile,” he added. “I’ve discovered it goes well with many Western recipes, perhaps even better than wine or beer.”

　　“清酒的搭配范围之广令人称奇，”他接着说。“我发现它与很多西方菜式都可以很好地搭配，甚至可能比葡萄酒和啤酒还好。”

　　Fresh oysters, for example, usually go pair well with Champagne or Chablis, which have a crisp acidity. But Mr. Shichida, who runs the 140-year-old Tenzan brewery, says sake works better. The drink is mellower and less acidic, and its cleansing properties help remove the oysters’ briny taste, he said. And sake’s umami — a savory sensation considered to be the “fifth taste” — helps improve their fleshiness.

　　例如，法国生蚝一般都以口感酸爽的香槟或夏布利酒搭配。但七田谦介却说，清酒配生蚝效果更佳。他经营的天山酒造(Tenzan brewery)已有140年历史。他说，这是因为清酒更香醇、没那么酸，由于能去除邪味，它还可以消除生蚝的腥气。此外，清酒的鲜味(umami)——经常被称为“第五种味道”——则提升了食物的质感。

　　At a recent dinner at Hixter, a restaurant here, the head chef, Ronnie Murray, paired a plate of Launceston lamb and meaty girolle mushrooms with Mr. Shichida’s 75 Junmai, a full-bodied sake that uses unpolished rice, a rarity even in Japan. The Japanese generally prize sake that contains highly polished rice, which produces a flowery and smooth taste. By contrast, Mr. Shichida’s sake had a round, woody flavor with a tempered acidity that complemented the earthy lamb.

　　最近在伦敦Hixter餐厅享用晚餐时，主厨朗尼·莫瑞(Ronnie Murray)以一盘朗塞斯顿羔羊肉和有肉质口感的鸡油菌，来搭配七田谦介的“纯米75”。这种清酒用糙米酿造，口味浓烈，即使在日本也很稀有。日本人一般喜欢用精米酿造的清酒，因为精米能带来一种优雅和柔滑的味道。相比之下，七田谦介的清酒则饱满直接，酸味受到了抑制，与味道浓厚的羊肉相得益彰。

　　“Wine tends to be more acidic and cuts through the taste of meat,” said Gareth Groves, the head of marketing at Bibendum Wine, a retailer that recently announced that it was stocking sake from Japan. “Sake is less about cutting through the food than sitting alongside it.”

　　“葡萄酒往往口感更酸，会盖过肉的味道，”必比登葡萄酒(Bibendum Wine)市场营销负责人加雷思·格罗夫斯(Gareth Groves)说。这家零售商最近宣布，从日本进口了大量清酒。“清酒不太会盖住食物的味道，能够互不影响。”

　　Most Westerners generally view sake as a clear-colored liquor to be savored with sushi and sashimi, with an alcohol content of 15 to 20 percent. It is thought to have originated in the seventh century and is considered the drink of the gods in the Shinto religion.

　　多数西方人只是知道，清酒颜色澄清，要搭配寿司或刺身，酒精度在15%到20%之间。清酒据信起源于7世纪，而在日本的神道教里，清酒则被视作神祗的饮品。

　　There are 80 types of rice specially designed to produce sake, which is made from fermented rice, water and koji — white rice imbued with a special kind of mold. While wine is typically served only in glasses, sake can be poured into a variety of cups that alter its fragrance, including earthenware, lacquerware, glass, porcelain and box-shaped ones made from Japanese cedar.

　　专门用来酿造清酒的大米有80种。清酒是由酒酿、水和酒曲酿成的。酒曲是加入了某种特殊霉菌的大米。葡萄酒一般只用玻璃杯盛，而清酒却可以倒入不同的杯皿，酒香也会因为容器的不同而略有差异。可以盛放清酒的容器包括陶器、漆器、玻璃、瓷器，还有用日本柳杉制做的盒型容器。

　　Sake ranges from sparkling, somewhat similar to Champagne, to namazake, which tastes best straight from the vat, unpasteurized. Meaning “raw sake,” namazake offers a taste of the ethereal, as it can sour within hours. Some other sake uses yuzu, a Japanese citrus, making the drink a tangy cousin of the Italian limoncello, while umeshu is kind of a plummy version of the Hungarian dessert wine Tokaj.

　　清酒种类繁多，从有些类似香槟的发泡酒，到未经杀菌处理的生酒。生酒直接从酒桶汲出时味道最佳，口感妙不可言，但几个小时就会变质。还有一些清酒是用日本柚酿制的，这种柑橘属水果又称香橙，味道就像是意大利柠檬酒(limoncello)的浓郁版。而梅酒则仿佛是梅子味的匈牙利甜酒托卡伊(Tokaj)。

　　Some lesser-known koshu, or aged sake, sells for more than $300 a bottle for a 40-year-old vintage. Shigeri Shiraki, whose family brewery in the mountainous region of Gifu was founded in 1835, is exploring how to make her 20-year-old aged sake, Daruma Masamune, palatable to Westerners. It is brewed manually by a handful of employees, and only in the winter, a practice among koshu brewers that dates to the 17th century. Mrs. Shiraki said her brewery does not use refrigerators.

　　还有一些不那么出名的古酒，即陈年清酒。一瓶40年的古酒售价在300美元以上。白木繁里（Shigeri Shiraki，音）是岐阜市山区一座家族清酒厂的老板。这家酒厂创立于1835年。她正在探索如何让自己酿造了20年的清酒——达摩正宗(Daruma Masamune)——适合西方人的口味。这种古酒是由几名工人手工酿制的，而且只在冬天酿造，延续了17世纪酿造古酒时普遍采用的方法。白木说她的清酒厂不用冷库。

　　On its own, her sake has a salty undertone reminiscent of soy sauce or Marmite, and it shares notes with port, sherry or the smoky-flavored Islay Scotch whisky. Mrs. Shiraki suggested pairing it with a particularly rich dessert, pouring it over a slice of pecan pie and vanilla ice cream, or trying it as a digestive.

　　白木繁里的清酒带有一种咸味，能让人联想起酱油或马麦酱，还有一丝波尔图葡萄酒、雪利酒，或者烟熏味艾拉岛威士忌(Islay Scotch)的口感。白木繁里建议搭配味道浓郁的甜品，在享用山核桃派和香草冰淇淋时倒上一杯，或者把它当成一种餐后酒。

　　Some chefs and food lovers describe the experiment with sake as a shot in the dark, but for brewers, the challenge is more urgent.

　　一些大厨和美食爱好者称，用清酒所做的这种尝试结果还很难说，但对于酿酒商来说，面前的挑战越来越迫在眉睫。

　　Sake consumption has fallen sharply in Japan since the 1970s because of a decreasing birthrate and a switch by many drinkers to wine, much of it imported, or other domestic drinks like beer, whiskey or shochu, a Japanese spirit. Japan exported 5,000 tons of sake in 2012, but mostly to Japanese restaurants, limiting its audience. Overseas sales are still a small fraction of total sales.

　　自1970年代以来，清酒在日本的消耗量就大幅下降，一个原因是出生率的不断下滑，此外许多饮酒者转而饮用葡萄酒——很大一部分是进口的——或者国内生产的其他酒类，如啤酒、威士忌或烈性的烧酒。2012年，日本出口了5000吨清酒，但主要都流入了日式餐厅，这就限制了清酒的受众。海外销售仍然只占总销量的很小部分。

　　The number of brewers — mostly old-fashioned and family-owned — has shrunk to around 1,000 from around 4,600 in the earlier part of the 20th century.

　　清酒厂的数量已经由上世纪上半叶的约4600家，减少至目前的1000家左右。大部分清酒厂都是传统的家族式酒厂。

　　“The sake industry won’t survive on its local market,” said Barry McCaughley, a food and beverage consultant based in London. “Unless it makes changes now, it will be dead in 20 to 30 years.”

　　“清酒行业单靠本地市场根本无法生存，”伦敦的餐饮行业咨询师巴里·麦可利(Barry McCaughley)说。“除非现在就做出改变，否则二三十年后清酒业就会消亡。”

　　Restaurants and retailers are starting to push sake as the next drink fad, similar to craft beer, whose popularity has exploded in Britain. A Scottish brewer, Arran, plans to start producing Britain’s first sake on a commercial scale later this year, the second European brewer to do so after Nogne O of Norway. Many bars are already using sake in their cocktails.

　　餐厅和零售商正开始把清酒包装成新的时尚饮品，就像在英国人气爆棚的手工酿制啤酒一样。苏格兰的酒厂Arran计划今年晚些时候，商业化生产英国的第一款国产清酒。它是继挪威的纳酷欧(Nogne O)之后，第二家采取这种做法的欧洲酒厂。许多酒吧已经开始使用清酒调制鸡尾酒。

　　For all the gambling on foreign sales, brewers say they have one ultimate aim: bringing sake back in Japan as well.

　　除了进军海外市场的赌博，酿酒商说，他们还有一个终极目标：让清酒在日本重新流行起来。

　　“If we’re able to tell the Japanese, ‘Look how much foreigners are enjoying sake,’ that would give them an opportunity to rediscover sake and revive demand,” Mr. Shichida said. “We don’t want our culture to disappear. We really don’t.”

　　“如果我们能够告诉日本人，‘看，外国人多喜爱清酒啊，’就会让他们重新发现清酒的魅力，进而提振需求，”七田谦介说。“我们不想让自己的文化消失。真的不想。”