Aww that's mean :p

mmm, that's true. The word 'Sake' can sometimes be used to refer to any alcohol. A menu might have 'sake' as a heading, then list all the alcohol available, and then list actual sake as 'nihonshuu'　日本酒.

I have seen it done, but unfortunately I have even seen the pronunciation given wrong too. :eek:

I think Coumbine's suggestion of listing it as nihonshuu would be a definite improvement.

But then my aggravation is having to translate umeshu to "plum wine" for waitstaff who don't speak even basic Japanese in Japanese restaurants.

so far that i know....
the traditional term for sake was used to refer to alcoholic beverages in general...
with modernisation, sake become the term for rice wine as beer is "biiru" and wine is "wain".

as to the hot and cold thing~
sake was first served warm around the time of one of those wars people have which consumed vast resources, causing the general quality of sake to go down. to counter this, restaurants started to serve warm sake as a way to guise the inferior quality.

I believe that is why that in most restaurants, only the house sake is served warm, while all the other more expensive ones are served chilled.

and huh... this may just be me...
but i pronounce sake (rice wine) as "sa-ke"
and sake (salmon) as "shya-ke"

of course, do please feel free to correct me on any of this as i am honestly not entirely certain of myself here x.x''