It was just a matter of time before the venerable “rice wine” of ancient Japan achieved latter-day cachet in post-modern Colorado’s craft-beverage culture. Sake is the latest locally produced, born-again beverage to vie for hipsters’ attention alongside the more established crafts – beer, cider and whiskey. And though at present there are only two known sake producers in the state, lawmakers are being asked to revisit state regulations for alcoholic beverages to provide the new iteration of sake a better toe-hold in the market.

Senate Bill 79 would give sake producers access to some of the marketing tools currently available to the state’s small wineries. Notably, the bill would afford producers greater leeway to make their own sales – pivotal for new alcoholic beverages that have yet to earn shelf space at the state’s liquor stores.

To give them that latitude, the legislation by state Senate Minority Lucia Guzman, D-Denver, reclassifies sake as a vinous liquor, i.e., wine, as opposed to its current designation as a malt liquor, meaning beer. Because sake is regulated as a beer, its producers only can operate one “sales room” – defined by the state as a place where an alcoholic beverage can be sold for consumption or carry-out – and the sales room must be located on site at the  point of production. If the bill passes, as the legislature’s policy staff explains in its standard fiscal note accompanying the bill:

…sake manufacturers will be licensed as either a wine manufacturer or limited winery. Licensed wine manufacturers are allowed two sales rooms, one of which must be at the licensed manufacturing location. Limited wineries may have one sales room at the manufacturing location and up to five additional locations. Sales rooms not located on the licensed manufacturing premises may be used for additional permanent locations, or may be used to conduct sales at temporary events throughout the year.

Will the added flexibility eventually make sake the next drink of choice, perhaps for post-millenials? We’ll see, but there’s an ironic footnote to the regulatory reshuffling proposed by the bill: It turns out sake is actually more like a beer than a wine after all.

DiningOut Denver & Boulder, taking note of the sake resurgence, observed:

A common misconception is that sake is essentially rice wine, but, says Hughes “The process of making sake is actually more like beer lagering, a process of cool fermentation.” In fact, the sake goes through a multi-stage fermentation process taking about two and a half months to complete.

So, why does SB 79 aim to turn sake into a wine? Probably because that’s what works in the statutory labyrinth of alcohol regulation. As if it needed to be repeated, lawmaking ain’t pretty; sometimes it takes pounding a square peg into a round hole to achieve a desired end.

And, really, the sake will probably taste just as good.