I have a short piece in the new issue of Caviar Affair magazine describing the influence of Japanese bartending on the rest of the world.
The magazine also has lots of pricey booze recomendations, stories about port and cognac, and a few bartenders you may know.
The digital version of the magazine is at this link, and my Japanese bartending story is on page 39.
Here are some observations about bars in Japan from my trip with Suntory whiskies.
Thanks Japan, you are awesome!
On my five-day visit to Japan with Suntory whiskies I hit 21 bars by my count. I am talking about them in groups. Next up: The Rest of Them.
The difference between the various styles of bars is subtle and I'm defining them as I see them. I'll be describing whisky bars, cocktail bars, highball and standing bars, and pubs/clubs/dives. This is that last section.
Rippongi Nouen is actually a restaurant but it's notable because they serve highballs with flavors like ginger and rosemary.
The restaurant has big glass cubes in the back that have (or used to have, can't tell) herbs and vegetables growing in them.
The tasting menu had some great food. I think they picked this place not just for the drinks but for its vegetarian tasting menu.
(Everyone gets their personal smoking grill in one dish.)
One Shot Bar The Door (I'm not sure if it's called The Door or One Shot Bar) is located in Kyoto. I didn't see much of the bar downstairs as we were in a private room upstairs with our shoes off on with tatami mats having a great conversation. It has a short cocktail menu, mostly of classics. I ordered a Martini.
Three Martini Bar in Yokohama is full of good. The walls are lined with vintage whisky decanters and ice buckets and they were playing a soundtrack of yacht rock. Good vibes all around.
(Mmm, tequira.)
Our hosts gave us a few reasons why it's called Three Martini, but I only remember one of them. "Three" in German is spelled "dreit" as in "dry." In exchange, I told them that in America it might refer to the three-martini lunch or Dorothy Parker's "two at the most" rhyme.
Anyway, we ordered Moscow Mules and the three Martinis.
For bar snacks they had several options including fried sugar(!*!*!*!).
Eagle Bar in Shinjuku area of Tokyo looks like a speakeasy gentleman's club with patterned wallpaper, wooden walls, and carpeting. To enter you walk down a flight of stairs to find a room with the main bar. Walk down another flight of stairs (two storeys below the street) and there is another small bar room where we sat.
We sat at the bar. It has low barstools so your feet are touching the floor. While a couple to our right were working their way through the cocktail list, we stuck to highballs.
Bigri Bar is located in Golden Gai, the neighborhood of tiny bars I mentioned previously.
You enter in a set of incredibly steep stairs into a room that looks like a kitchen in a studio apartment.
I think this is what is called a "mama-san bar" as the owner is an older lady who serves drinks and also cooks you (not exactly good-looking) food from behind the same bar counter.
(Hand-knit cocktail coasters. Adorable.)
Track Bar is an uber-hipster bar that wasn't filled with hipsters at the time we visited. They have a wall of 33" records and a DJ spinning them. There were mason jars full of help-yourself snacks. But it still operated like a cocktail bar - you ask when you walk in the door if there is enough seating before entering.
It seems like a whisky bar but I saw cocktails being made as well. I ordered a highball, and their house style at this bar is to serve it in a frosted glass without ice.
On my five-day visit to Japan with Suntory whiskies I hit 21 bars by my count. I am talking about them in groups. Next up: Standing and Highball Bars.
The difference between the various styles of bars is subtle and I'm defining them as I see them. I'll be describing whisky bars, cocktail bars, highball and standing bars, and pubs/clubs/dives. As far as I can tell, highball bars are all standing bars but I'd imagine there are standing bars that don't specialize in highballs.
As you can guess, standing/highball bars are bars in which everyone is standing up drinking at tall tables rather than seated. They are popular after-work bars. Perhaps they're Japanese happy hour bars.
Anyway, in Kyoto we went to a bar called Getto, which is a pretty great name. The bar is as big as a hallway, with lots of traditional Japanese beverages. You stand up the whole time but are essentially leaning against the wall behind you.
There I tried aged awarami, a beverage from Okinawa that is aged in ceramic containers. It tastes like shochu for the most part. A little gamey but nothing special.
I also tried kokutojochu, which is sugar cane schochu fermented with rice mold. Basically, it's Batavia arrack and I wanted to see if it tasted the same. More or less! It was, as expected, completely disgusting, like fermented sweatsocks.
However, the cucumber was awesome.
Gindaka is a highball bar in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. It's basically a take-out restaurant with one window facing the street and another into a tiny room for standing customers. They have a tap that serves highballs of Yamazaki 10 and Suntory Whisky (a blended whisky sometimes called "koku" which means "box" as the bottle is short and squareish.)
(This is the neighborhood where Gindaka is located. Busy, to say the least.)
(Highballs on tap, with Suntory Premium Malts beer also on tap in the middle.)
(Koku bottle in ad.)
When they served us the Koku, it came with a lemon slice, served in a plastic mug. For the Yamazaki 10, they put it in a highball glass. And when we ordered a highball with Hakushu 10 they put it in the same glass with a tiny piece of mint on top. A nice little indicator that you've moved up in your drinking choice.
(First drink with Suntory Whisky.)
(Second highball, Yamazaki 10 in highball glass.)
(Hakushu 10 highball, with tiny mint garnish.)
Marugine, my hosts tell me, is the most famous highball bar in Japan. It's what I would call 'regular bar' sized, but with all tall communal tables for standing and eating or drinking.
As this was my sixth bar of the evening, I am a little hazy about any other details.
On my five-day visit to Japan with Suntory whiskies I hit 21 bars by my count. I am talking about them in groups. Next up: Cocktail Bars.
The difference between the various styles of bars is subtle and I'm defining them as I see them. I'll be describing whisky bars, cocktail bars, highball and standing bars, and pubs/clubs/dives. Many cocktail bars look pretty much like whisky bars, since so many bars carry a massive amount of scotch.
Bar High Five is run by Japan's most famous bartender, Hidetsugu Ueno (Ueno-san). It was voted one of the world's 50 best bars. It's a tiny little place located in a building full of bars.
It only seats about a dozen people at the bar, plus there is an additional booth that can hold about eight more people. The mood inside was great - people complain about the formality of Japanese bartenders but I've found that when you're sitting at the bar it's fine to chat and laugh and have a good time with them.
Unfortunately we were only here for one drink as we were a large group at that point and didn't feel like we should hog the whole place. Someday I will be back for longer!
(At least Ueno-san looks good in this picture.)
Tender Bar is owned by Japan's other most famous bartender, Kazuo Uyeda (Uyeda-san). This bar is classy and weighty and feels expensive; the Pegu Club to High Five's PDT.
Though I was tempted to order Uyeda's famous Gimlet, I opted for a Jack Rose that came out dry, as opposed to my bar-mate's surprisingly delicious bitters-free Manhattan.
Uyeda-san's wife was our host for the evening and her English was quite good. I had met them both in New York for a 2-day seminar on Japanese bartending.
Bar Orange, near Shibuya in Tokyo, is a nearly-hidden downstairs cocktail bar. It's dedicated to the movie Clockwork Orange though you'd not call it a theme bar. It's very sleek and dark and I'd imagine attracts a stylish young crowd. The cocktails are served in gorgeous vintage-looking glasses.
Ishi no hana was the most progressive bar we visited in Japan. It's run by bartender Shinobu Ishigaki, who won the Bacardi Grand Prix competition a few years ago with this drink:
(That is some serious garnish.)
I had an Apple Vinegar Martini, while my bar companion had a Yellow Chartreuse Mojito. Other ingredients on the menu include rhubarb confit, jasmine, saffron syrup, and earl grey tea.
The bartender Shinobu Ishigaki even has his face on a can of a green tea beverage called calpis sour.
While the Ginza bars of Tender Bar, High Five, and Star Bar get all the glory, visitors to Tokyo should definitely put this one on their list.
On my five-day visit to Japan with Suntory whiskies I hit over 20 bars. I think the best way to talk about them will be in groups. First up: Whisky Bars.
The difference between the various styles of bars is subtle and I'm defining them as I see them. I'll be describing whisky bars, cocktail bars, highball and standing bars, and pubs/clubs/dives. I only hit one or two izakaya places.
Whisky bars specialize in whisky, of course. Most of them have a huge range of single-malt scotch whisky (100 different bottles is a start) and also serve whisky highballs. Many have a cocktail list too, but typically these list just a few classic drinks like Martinis, Manhattans, and Gimlets. The focus is on whisky rocks and whisky highballs.
Whisky bars I didn't visit include ones with names like Bar Argyll, Bar Caol Ila, Bar Main Malt, Cask, Kask, and Malt House Islay. Many are associated with either Yamazaki or Nikka whisky and will serve a better selection of those whiskies than of the other brand. It's sort of like how fast food restaurants usually serve either Coke or Pepsi but not both.
Highlander, one of the bars in the fabulous Hotel Okura Tokyo, has red plaid carpet and a clubby, old-world look. I tried a few interesting whiskies there, including the stunning Hibiki 21 year old blended Japanese whisky.
(Image from the hotel's website.)
K6, in Kyoto near the Yamazaki whisky, is an upstairs bar with shelves around three sides that stocks 600 single malts! We had a nice chat with the bartender and a few unusual drams. And then we ordered haggis pizza, because if offered Scottish food in Italian format in a bar in Japan you just say yes.
Oil is in a special place in Tokyo called Shinjuku Golden Gai. It is full of tiny bars stacked on top of each other, many the size of a bedroom. Some welcome regulars only; others are open to tourists. Some of them you're practically climbing a latter to get into.
(Bar directory of Golden Gai.)
I got a feeling my hosts were not all that interested in taking me there, but there I went. We went to two bars, Oil and Bigri Bar (that I'll talk about later).
Oil serves two things for the most part: Jack Daniels and Triangle Shochu. You can buy a bottle and have it there waiting for you on your next visit. The bartender, who appears to be the main owner as his picture is all over the place, is a heavily-tattooed, long haired rock and roll type. The rest of the decor is dedicated to actor Yusaku Matsuda, who was in the 1989 movie Black Rain
(Cartoon of the bartender.)
When I ordered a whisky on the rocks expecting scorn and derision from too-cool-for-school guy, he took a large, perfectly clear piece of ice, put it into a tumbler glass, carefully stirred it with a barspoon a full minute or so to cool the glass, and poured the whisky. Nicely done.
There are several bars called Yamazaki Bar so I'm not sure how to identify this one by address, but it was staffed with all women bartenders wearing suits. So it's not really a "hostess bar" where you are paying for female company.
Anyway, they do a very nice presentation for whisky on the rocks. They call it "tornado" style when they serve it with a few big pieces of ice in an oversized Bordeaux wine glass. Then you can have it "pierced"- they bring out a box of garnishes and you can choose from them. They include simple miniature roses, raspberries, lime/orange slices, mint, and you can dip any of the above in a little caramel or honey.
It was a classy, easy, and affordable way to make a drink on the rocks a little more special.
Next post: Cocktail bars!
Yesterday I wrote about visiting the Hakushu distillery in Japan. Today I'll write about Suntory's other single-malt distillery, Yamazaki. It is located between Kyoto and Osaka, at the convergence of several rivers. I believe they said the distillery welcomes 100,000 visitors each year.
(Mount Fuji as seen from the train to Kyoto.)
The Yamazaki distillery was built in 1923 and launched its first whisky, the White Label, in 1929. That whisky is still made today.
The distillery location was chosen because of its water (as are most distilleries), also sought out by Sen no Rikyo, the inventor of the Japanese tea ceremony. One of his tea houses from the 1500s still stands nearby.
Like at Hakushu they import malted barley from Scotland, then grind it, mash it, ferment it, distill it, and age it on site. At Yamazaki they use a combination of wooden and stainless steel washbacks (fermentation vessels). They use the same yeasts as at Hakushu, but sometimes in different proportions.
They have six differently-shaped pairs of stills to make whiskies with many different flavor characteristics, further enhanced by aging in five different types of barrels.
Hogsheads (reassembled ex-bourbon barrels at a larger size), puncheons (large barrels made of new American oak), and Mizunara (Japanese oak) barrels are made at the cooperage in Japan at their grain distillery.
Spanish oak sherry butts are made for them in Spain, and ex-bourbon barrels are what they are.
Mizunara oak grows in the north of Japan, and sometimes in Hokkaido. I used to describe its flavor as similar to sandalwood incense, but on this visit I was tasting it more as a combination of sticky pine tree and cedar. Either way, it's got spice.
They still have a cask from 1924 in the warehouse (though they've swapped out the whisky) and you can see the Cadiz sherry stamp beneath the Yamazaki one.
We tasted whiskies aged in three types of oak: Mizunara, Spanish ex-sherry, and new American oak puncheons.
From the Yamazaki website, "White oak adds vanilla and coconut flavours during the aging process. Tannins and other polyphenols contained in Spanish oak casks leach into the whisky, imbuing it with a deeper reddish hue compared with white oak casks. Whiskies aged in Spanish oak casks typically have fruity, chocolate notes. Over long periods of aging the Japanese oak casks add a distinctively Eastern touch to the whisky, endowing it with sweet fragrances reminiscent of incense with a hint of citrus. This unique flavour has been gaining the Yamazaki brand new adherents around the world."
At Yamazaki they have six different still shapes, use five types of barrels, and barley at two peating levels. This adds up to 6x5x2 = 60 different whiskies produced at this distillery to be used in single malt and in blends.
Speaking of blends, the Hibiki blend is assembled at this distillery as well. (I think the lower-end blended whiskies that we don't get in the States are put together here too.) The blends have aged grain, column-distilled whiskies along with the single malts from the Hakushu and Yamazaki distilleries.
At the distillery, there is a tasting room where you can try a variety of distillery-only products like 100% sherry cask Yamazaki the 1980s and white dog.
They also have a library of their whisky experiments.
And an advertising museum. I wish they'd bring back Uncle Torys.
Now that we've talking about how they make Hakushu, Yamazaki, and Hibiki, I'll get into where and how to drink them in Japan over the next few posts.
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