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Zen and the Art of Japanese Cocktail Development

During Hawaii Cocktail Week at the bar The Manifest I attended a seminar lead by Takayuki Suzuki, in which Suzuki demonstrated several cocktails. It was terrific and I'll do my best to explain how so.

 I think I've observed modern Japanese bartending enough now to make a few observations about their style and philosophy:

• Four ingredients is a lot.
• They're not afraid of artificially-colored liqueurs as we are in other countries. Green and blue liqueurs are common in high-end cocktail bars
• Drink-making technique can reflect the philosophical goal of the cocktail, whereas in the US it's always just about what's in the glass at the end
• Every drink has a story

But Suzuki really drove home some of these points. Let's start with ice.

Hand Carved Ice Ball and Wabi-Sabi 

Ice is treated entirely differently in Japan than in other countries. In the olden days, ice was frozen in the winter in man-made ponds, then stored all year (as it was in America, except the ponds were already there). But in Japan, the ice was sometimes given as a gift in the summers, so it's still valued as something special. Bars in Japan (at least the 20 or so that I've been to) do not have their own ice machines. They have ice delivery service. And Suzuki says that even people at home don't use freezer ice - they buy it at the convenience store. So I guess ice is treated like produce.

Though wabi-sabi is an aesthetic and philosophy with a lot of parts, the one we're concerned with here is making human things that reflect the beauty of nature. (Those green and blue liqueurs tend to represent leaves and water in cocktails.) 

Suzuki says that when he carves an ice cube into an ice ball, it is with the wabi-sabi concept: the round ice ball is meant to resemble a river rock worn smooth by the water passing over it, representing the concept of 'floating time.'

And here we just thought it looked cool.

Bamboo Leaf Martini

Japan has 24 mini-seasons, and many of Suzuki's cocktails are meant to reflect particular ones. The Bamboo Leaf Martini is set between the end of winter and the beginning of spring. First he seasons a cocktail glass with creme de menthe- adds some then shakes it out. The he makes a cup out of a bamboo leaf, which rests inside the cocktail glass.

Inside the bamboo leaf cup, he pours Hakushu whisky with a bamboo leaf syrup. Then outside of the leaf but inside the cocktail glass he adds the flavor of yuzu peel. Thus the drink has the ending of summer inside the bamboo leaf, and the whisper of approaching winter citrus subtly beneath it.  

Green Breeze

This cocktail represents the beginning of summer, which is signified with soft breezes. Suzuki adds a mint leaf and mint liqueur to a tall glass, then gently crushes the mint and discards the liqueur - this infuses the leaves with more mint flavor. Next he adds an ice ball to the glass, which seals it and traps the mint and its flavor beneath it. 

On top of the ice ball, he adds Hakushu whisky, plus tonic and soda water at the very top with mint leaves as garnish. Thus when you first sip it, it just has the scent of mint and soda water. You don't taste the mint at first but you sense it, then as you consume the drink, eventually the mint at the bottom of the glass will mix with the liquids above it and you'll taste the mint. This represents the movement of breezes.

Tatami Cocktail 

This cocktail is built around Yamazaki 12 year whisky. Suzuki says this whisky gives him tasting notes of apricot, tropical chewing gum, then a cacao flavor, and the essence of dried plants. When he tastes the whisky, it reminds him of taking the train to his wife's family's house near where Yamazaki is distilled; seeing the traditional Japanese houses, and thinking of the sun hitting the tatami mats inside those houses. 

To recreate that, he mixes pineapple juice, apricto brandy, a touch of lemon juice, Yamazaki 12, and simple syrup in a shaker. He shakes and strains this into a cocktail glass then adds a float of dark cacao liqueur. To represent the tatami mat, he burns some dried lemongrass then adds this to the drink as garnish. 

Developing Cocktails the Japanese Way

Suzuki says that when he teaches students to create cocktails, they begin with a blank sheet of paper and a base spirit. He asks them to smell and taste the spirit and draw or write the image of what the spirit reminds them of. Then he asks them in which season  the image is taking place, and/or who is there or what time of day and where it is. Only then do they start to think about the other ingredients that will go into the cocktail; only after the cocktail has a story is it manifested. 

Takayuki Suzuki says, "The action of mixing has to have a reason."

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For some cool videos of Takayuki Suzuki demonstrating ice carving, the Mizuwai cocktail, and to learn more about wabi-sabi, check out this page.

If you'd like to learn more about cocktails and bars in Japan, here are some other blog posts I wrote about my trip last year. 

• Yamazaki distillery visit
• Hakushu distillery visit
• Highball bars in Japan
• Whisky Bars in Japan
• Cocktail Bars in Japan
• Miscellaneous other bars in Japan
• Some observations about drinking in Japan
• Japanese Whisky Primer

 

Japan in Oakland: UmamiMart, Whisky, and Ice

In the December issue of Oakland Magazine, I have a short piece about Japanese drinking culture in Oakland. 

The story is centered on UmamiMart, the online and brick-and-mortar shop selling Japanese bar (and kitchen) tools. 

I also mention big ice (of course) at places like Prizefighter, and Japanese whisky like Yamazaki, Hibiki, and Hakushu at the traditional Ippuku and at Acme bar. 

The magazine is available for reading in one of those online reader formats. The link is here and the story is on page 21-22. 

 

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If you like Japanese whisky and bars, here are some other blog posts I wrote about my trip to Japan last year. 

• Yamazaki distillery visit
• Hakushu distillery visit
• Highball bars in Japan
• Whisky Bars in Japan
• Cocktail Bars in Japan
• Miscellaneous other bars in Japan
• Some observations about drinking in Japan
• Japanese Whisky Primer 

Japanese Bartending Story

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. 

Bars in Japan: Observations

Here are some observations about bars in Japan from my trip with Suntory whiskies. 

• You can smoke in bars in Japan. Bars were all a little bit smoky, but none of them I visited were smoky that your eyes hurt. 
• When you enter a cocktail bar and most other types of bars, they give you a hot wet towel to wipe your hands. Even the low-end bars give you a wet-nap version of this. This is lovely and I'd like to see some bars in the US do it. 
• For many bars it's seated customers only. You pop your head in and ask if there is room before entering. 
• A lot of cocktail menus don't list the drink ingredients, only the name, even for original creations. What good is that?  
• When barhopping at home, I can have just one drink at each bar. In Japan I noticed that my hosts always steered me toward a second drink. I think that it's impolite to leave after just one. 
• Understanding Japanese gets easier after the third drink. However, it gets really hard again after the tenth. 
• Japanese people can drink a lot. I have a healthy layer of fat and yet all of my skinny Japanese hosts kept up or surpassed me nightly.
• Bars have a cover charge.
• Almost every bar offers some food. A snack is often included in the cover charge, but they offer much more. Thus you can go barhopping without eating first -you're going to be eating at every place you go. 

Thanks Japan, you are awesome!

Bars in Japan: Miscellany

 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. 

Bars in Japan: Standing and Highball Bars

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. 

Bars in Japan: Cocktail Bars

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. 

 

 

Bars in Japan: Whisky Bars

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!