Mokkiri with an Overflow of Hospitality and Sake

Mokkiri is a way to place a glass in a masu (wooden box-shaped sake cup) or small plate and pour sake until it overflows out of the glass into the secondary vessel. In past times at taverns, the standard serving size of sake was ichigo (one go, 180ml). This is because when the sake was poured they put a saucer under the cup to catch the spilt sake, and they used to consider the spilt sake was also included in the volume of ichigo. This is the origin of mokkiri, and the dynamic performance of overpouring sake became popular, which gradually came to have more of a significance as a performance of hospitality by pouring sake until it overflows, rather than adjusting the volume of sake, and this has continued up to now. The word mokkiri is said to come from morikiri, which means to fill a tokkuri or other vessels full of sake from a sake cask when selling sake by measure. There is no proper way to drink mokkiri, but generally you drink sake from a glass. When you sip a little, then pour the spilt sake into the glass. If the glass is placed inside the masu, take the glass out of masu, then you can drink directly from the masu. However, in spite of a bactericidal effect of cypress and cedar used for the masu, sometimes drinking sake in which the glass was immersed may be seen as a hygienic problem. This also applies to small plates. Mokkiri serves as one of the important sake cultures, but if you are worried about the problem, enjoy sake in a normal way.