Alcademics.com

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!

A Visit to the Yamazaki Distillery in Japan

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.

 

A Visit to the Hakushu Distillery in Japan

I visited the Hakushu distillery owned by Suntory, located in the Yamanashi prefecture, about two hours by train from Tokyo in Japan. There is a new Hakushu single malt whisky on the US market. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, Hakushu was built in 1973 and is located at a high elevation - 700 meters above sea level. (Scotland's highest distilleries are Dalwhinnie and Braeval, both about 355 meters.) On the train ride there, your ears are continually clogging as you change elevation. The distillery is on a large site to protect its water source, and doubles as a bird sanctuary. 

The Yamazaki  distillery used to grow at least some of its own grain up until around 1970, but now they import all their barley. It is grown and malted in Scotland and shipped to Japan. Suntory buys malted barley at two different peating levels; basically unpeated and at highly peated at at 25 ppm phenol content. 

They grind the malted barley on site, then put it in the mash tun with hot water to expose the fermentable sugars and transfer it to the wooden washbacks for fermentation.  They ferment it using both brewers' and distillers' yeast.

They have six pairs of stills at Hakushu;  two of them the same shape and one not currently used. Thus they have four active still shapes producing different whiskies. As there is another whisky boom, they're currently distilling 24/7. 

As Hakushu is at a very high elevation, the whisky ages more slowly with less wood influence on the spirit. Though they use five types of barrels at the other single malt distillery Yamakazi, at Hakushu they focus on two: ex-bourbon and hogshead. (Hogshead barrels are reconstructed bourbon barrels made a little larger, holding 230 liters rather than 180.) They do, however, age ex-sherry butts (Spanish oak, 480 liters), and puncheons (new American white oak, 480 liter). 

They rechar some barrels after using them to age whisky about four times, but after they rechar they only use them one more time. Distillery General Manager Mike Miyamoto says that the whisky aged in rechar barrels is more astringent than with regular ex-bourbon barrels. 

The smell of a recharred barrel is amazing! It's like campfire wood and sugars, even marshmallowish. 

At Hakushu they use only racked warehouses, in earthquake-safe metal racks that go about 13 levels high. 

Here they use peated and unpeated barley, four still shapes, and five types of casks (though they focus on two.) They say that between them (2x4x5) they make 40 different types of whisky at Hakushu. 

Regardless, to make up the Hakushu single malt they primarily include three whiskies distilled on-site:  unpeated malt distillate aged in hogshead barrels, unpeated malt distillate aged in  sherry butts, and peated malt distillate aged in  ex-bourbon barrels. 

We sampled each component separately and then the Hakushu 12 and 18 year old blends. With three widely different distillates, Hakushu is almost more of a blended malt (vatted malt) than a single malt.  

Japanese Whisky Backgrounder

This November I visited Japan courtesy of Suntory whisky. It was an amazing trip and I've got a lot to share over a few blog posts. 

 

The History of Whisky in Japan

After US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry helped open Japan to the West in the 1850s, there was a trend of the Japanese making fake foreign products including whisky. These were not whisky. 

But in 1918 Masatake Taketsuru, a Japanese chemist, visited Scotland and trained at several distilleries. After he returned to Japan, Shinjiro Torii (I would guess his name is the basis of the company name Suntory) provided the funds to start a Scottish-style distillery in Japan. 

They broke ground on the Yamazaki distillery in 1923, first distilled in 1924, and released their first whisky in 1929. 

A decade later, Taketsuru left Suntory and started Nikka, releasing their first whisky in 1940. Thus Taketsuru is the founder of the two great rivals in Japanese whisky today. 

Fifty years after founding the Yamazaki distillery, Suntory built the Hakushu distillery in 1973, distilling in 1974. They also own a grain distillery on another site.  

Whisky in Japan

As it was in the rest of the world, most Japanese whisky was blended whisky, a blend of column-distilled grain whisky with pot-distilled and more flavorful single malt whisky (usually from many different distilleries blended together). Single malts (made from all malted barley at a single distillery) were all the rage in the 1980s with the good economy, then consumption fell off, and then it came back again. Still, as it is in the rest of the world, blends are king. 

A big difference between Japan and Scotland is how those blended whiskies are made. In Scotland, even rival whisky companies trade whiskies with each other to make their blends. In Japan they do not. 

 So in order to have a range of different tasting whiskies to make up their blends, the Japanese install many different shapes of pot stills at their distilleries. Suntory opened the second distillery, Hakushu, to provide them with even more flavors for their blends. And as you'll see in upcoming posts, they also use a variety of barrel types to age the whisky.

Blended Whisky Bringing Back the Highball?

A few weeks ago I wrote about mizuwari, the whisky highball ritual sometimes performed in Japan. 

One thing I didn't emphasize was that most of the time these highballs are usually made with blended whisky, not single-malts. 

Now another company has announced the release of blended whisky made for the same purpose. Compass Box Whisky is launching a new range of blends called Great King Street. The first bottling, The Artist's Blend, will start hitting the US market in September. They're emphasizing this whisky's use in the highball. 

Compass Box founder/blender John Glaser said in a press release, “As well as being delicious neat, Great King Street is equally enjoyable drunk with ice, as a refreshing Highball with soda water and ice, or in cocktails. One of the wonderful things about a whisky highball is that it slips down as easily as beer.  This gives us whisky lovers a refreshing whisky-based drink for all sorts of different occasions—at the bar with friends after work, on a warm day, parties, receptions, even with food (particularly Asian food). We believe it is time for a renaissance of the Highball.”

Mad Men + Mizuwari + Great King Street. Does three make a trend? 

And do we think that blended whiskies make better highballs, or are they just less expensive so we don't feel bad about watering them down? 

Items of Interest in The Tasting Panel Magazine

I learned lots of stuff in the August issue of the Tasting Panel Magazine. I write for this magazine but didn't have a story in the current issue. Anyway:

1. Isle of Jura has a 200th Anniversary Edition, a 21 year old single malt aged in an ex-sherry cask. 
2. The Don Julio Anejo Claro that someone gave me a sip of at Tales is a real thing. For the 70th anniversary of the Don Julio being in the tequila business, they are releasing an anejo tequila that is filtere to make it clear, which supposedly will "bring back the bold agave flavor typically found in a blanco." I don't understand how you can filter flavor into a spirit, nor the point of making clear aged tequilas in general, but we'll see.  
3. There is some strange new "botanical absinthe/ green tea liqueur" called Tempest that has suspended drops of absinthe in it. Sadly low ABV of 25% but goofy fun nonetheless. 
4. Phil Adler makes a flavored ice cube inside another flavored ice cube. (Page 114 of the digital edition. )

A Rye Refresher

In my weekly recipe column for Fine Cooking, I talk about rye whiskey's comeback and list the following delicious recipe. 

Bulleit Rye Blinker
By Contemporary Cocktails

1 fl. oz Bulleit Rye
.25 fl. oz Raspberry Liqueur
.75 fl. oz Fresh Lemon Juice
1.5 fl. oz Fresh Grapefruit Juice
.5 fl. oz Simple Syrup

Shake all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into a Collins glass with new ice. Garnish with a grapefruit peel. 

As I was late on my deadline, I whipped up that drink for today's breakfast. It hit the spot.

Here's the full story should you care to read it. 

Mizuwari: Japanese Whisky Highball Ritual

The other day I was talking to Neyah White, brand ambassador for the Suntory family of whiskies, about highballs. He'd told me previously that highballs were a big thing in Japan that he'd like to see become popular stateside.

(Lousy picture but cool new glassware from Villeroy & Boch)

I figured I'd write about Japanese whisky for my column on FineCooking.com, and I wanted to include a recipe to accompany the blog entry. I said something like, "I'm guessing the Japanese have some riduculously complicated way to serve whisky and soda water." 

Right I was. White told me about mizuwari, the serving style in which a whisky highball is made in some places. It involves stirring the whisky 13 1/2 times and the cocktail another 3 1/2 times. 

Read the full recipe here, even though you've got the gist of it already.