“The one thing about sake is it’s really complicated,” Kaz Okochi posits at a corner table of his restaurant. His sits with a small group he has assembled for a class on the Japanese rice wine. “I don’t know if people need to know that much.”

But he’s willing to teach as much as people are interested in knowing.

On Monday evenings this month, Okochi will host a weekly sake tasting class at Kaz Sushi Bistro. The lesson includes a few hours around a table with Chef Kaz, seven premium sake pours, and izakaya style snacks from the kitchen’s menu like chicken wings that rival Bonchon, morsels of fried cubed pork with onion, and classic okonyomaki with bonito flakes fluttering atop the pancakes.

For $45 a person, which includes tax and gratuity, the class is practically being given away. The price is more than worth it for the drinks and food alone. And it comes with the wisdom and banter with the man who may be Washington’s leading sake expert and ambassador—and now a certified sake advisor. For Chef Kaz, the point is about sharing parts of his culture with those who want to learn.

“At this point, it’s not about the money,” explains Kaz who sees consistent business at his namesake restaurant in Golden Triangle and is also part owner of Masa 14. “It’s about being Japanese and being proud to share a Japanese product.”

That means learning a little bit about how brews differ based on to what percentage the rice is polished down, where the grains come from, different types of sake and their tasting notes, as well as the chance to pick out a new sake cup from the presented tray for each new bottle brought out.

No hot sakes are served here. That’s more for the cheap house pours that used to be just about all you could find in a Japanese restaurant. Kaz recounts a story of when he first brought premium sake to Washington when he was working at Sushi Ko in 1992, an effort which required a promise to buy every bottle his distributor brought over. A customer thought serving sake cold was a gimmick.

With the proliferation of high end sushi and izakaya restaurants in the city and range of sakes available, that’s clearly no longer the case. There’s the sparkling, cloudy Hakkaisan Sparkling Nigori Kaz serves; cans like Kikusui’s Funaguchi Kunko which packs an undiluted, unpasteurized, powerful punch; and one called Perfect Snow that is almost like chewing on a textured, creamy, funky, sweet milk.

And it’s not just restaurants like Kaz Sushi Bistro where pours can be obtained. Bottles and cans are available retail at H Mart and Lotte Plazas across Northern Virginia as well as a some smaller D.C. liquor stores. Kaz no longer needs to promise to buy all the bottles to ensure a local market for the rice wine.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival recently hosted their Grand Sake Tasting event, which saw 14 sake brewers from prefectures across Japan serving many of the selections Kaz has on his menu and dozens more. Chef Kaz was characteristically in the middle of things, working his restaurant’s table on his own with a reserved smile, but willing to engage just as at his class. He assembled skewers of raw, sake salmon with the miso marinated mozzarella that he also serves as one of the snacks at his sake tasting class. After the event, organizers and brewers boarded a bus bound for Kaz Sushi Bistro for the sake-fueled after party.

Seats at the Monday Night Sake Class can be reserved online. There’s very limited inventory available for October 5, 12, and 19 classes.

Kaz Sushi Bistro is located at 1951 I Street NW.