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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.

November 22, 2011
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!

November 21, 2011
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.

November 18, 2011
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.

November 17, 2011
A Kim Kardashian Shrinky Dink Sun Catcher Painted in Dehydrated Midori

I found a new use for the dehydrated Midori I made in the Solid Liquids project.

I made a sun catcher in the shape of Kim Kardashian from her Midori ad, and painted it with dehydrated (and rehydrated) Midori for her dress and X-Rated Fusion liqueur for her hair. Because why not?

I started with her Midori ad:

And had my graphic designer friend reduce Kim's profile to a line drawing.

I then printed this onto printable 8.5 x 11 inch shrink film. You know, the stuff used to make Shrinky Dinks, except blank.

Then I cut out the shape on the film and baked it in the oven according to the instructions.

It came out awesome! I am an arts & crafts master! It's about 4.5 inches tall.

So then I took some of my dehydrated Midori (see dehydration experiments here) and added a few drops of hot water to reconstitute it.

And I painted her dress. Then I painted her hair using dehydrated/rehydrated X-Rated Fusion Liqueur. Naturally, the Midori drink matches the dress.

And now she makes a lovely sun catcher.

Until it rains anyway. The thing about painting with dehydrated liqueur is that it washes off with water.

So I guess this Kim Kardashian sun catcher is also lickable.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like Campari Fruit Roll-Ups.

The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link.

November 9, 2011
Solid Liquids: The Missing Link Aviation

I haven't created cocktails yet with the dehydrated liqueurs I've been making for the Solid Liquids project, mostly because I figure y'all are don't lack imagination and will find good uses for them.

But here's a drink I've been hankering to create since the beginning.

The Aviation cocktail was originally made with gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice, and creme de violette liqueur, but at some point in one cocktail book copying from another, they left off that last ingredient.

For something like 60 years, the recipe was written incorrectly as the first three ingredients only, even through the beginning of the current classic cocktail revival. Then someone figured out they were missing the creme de violette that turned the drink sky blue and gave the cocktail its name.

I wrote about that here.

I decided a fun drink would be to create the drink that is the missing link between the wrong and correct recipes, leaving the drinker the option to have it either way. The cocktail has dehydrated creme de violette sugar around the rim, and what's in the glass is the other three ingredients.

Missing Link Aviation
By Camper English

2 oz. Gin
.75 oz. Maraschino Liqueur
.75 oz. Lemon Juice

Shake and strain all ingredients into a glass rimmed with Dehydrated Creme de Violette.

It tastes delicious.

Learn how to dehydrate liqueurs here.

The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link.

November 8, 2011
Camper’s Cocktails in Every Day with Rachael Ray

I have a two-page spread in the November 2011 issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine.

It has a few trends – stuff like fresh ginger and sherry/port in place of vermouth along with some ice cube tricks (recognize that rainbow ice?).

Also it has four recipes I developed- a spirit-interchangeble mint buck, a Grapefruit Vesper, a Sparkling Cinnamon Punch, and a port/espresso dessert drink. Nothing ground-breaking but they're all pretty tasty.

Run screaming to your local newsstand and pick it up!

October 31, 2011
A Visit to the Cointreau Distillery in Angers, France
This October I visited the Cointreau distillery in Angers, France. Angers is located southwest of Paris, about equidistant from Paris and Bordeaux.

I hadn't realized, but Cointreau was not originally famous for orange liqueur, but for Guignolet, a cherry liqueur. Cherries were brought the region by King Rene', who lived at the Chateau D'Angers.

We visited this castle and its tapestry called The Apocalypse; the world's longest.

(This way to the Apocalypse!)

The original Cointreau distillery was located in downtown Angers, but has since relocated. We drove to the distillery.

There, Alfred Cointreau explained the process.

The Distillation of Cointreau

Bitter and sweet orange peels are purchased from Brazil, Africa, and Spain. The dried peels at a certain ratio, along with some fresh peels, 96 percent neutral sugar beet alcohol, and water, are placed into the stills. The peels sit on a plate in the stills to make them easier to remove after distillation. They macerate this mixture overnight before distilling.

The stills for the first distillation are shaped like water tanks, made of copper.

After the first distillation, the alcohol passes up and over the tall, curved lyne arm to the second still.

The second still is a column.

(The straight pipes going back to the first stills are a type of reflux.)

In this one room they make the world's supply of Cointreau- 15 million bottles annually.

Due to local restrictions, the Cointreau for Brazil and Argentina is distilled here as usual to make a concentrated Cointreau, but then diluted and sweetened with sugar cane alcohol and sugar cane sugar, while the rest of the world gets beet alcohol/sugar. It would be fun to compare the two to see if one could detect any differences.

Production Parameters

We were then given a talk by Cointreau's Master Distiller Bernadette Langlais. Some information learned:
- The sweet oranges lend the orangey taste; the bitter peels bring a fresh, zesty lemon/lime notes
- Bitter oranges are harvested when still green
- The peels are either dried in the sun or in ovens
- There are 220 different essential oils in orange peels
- The bitter molecules from orange pith don't carry over during distillation. Thus they don't worry about the thickness of the peels. However, when something is just macerated (for example, limoncello) and not distilled then it is important to not get pith on the peels.
- When they add water to reduce Cointreau to proof, the essential oils in the peels cause the liqueur to louche; to get cloudy like when you add water to absinthe. They centrifuge the Cointreau to make it clear again. [*Update* This isn't quite true – see this post for clarification on the centrifuge process.]
- Of competing brands, they say that Cointreau has the highest amount of essential oils and the lowest amount of added sugar.
- The used orange peels go for cattle feed after distillation.
- Because of the volatility of the essential oils in Cointreau, bartenders should not leave a pour spout on the bottle overnight- some of the flavor will evaporate.
History

As mentioned previously, Cointreau originally produced cherry and many other liqueurs. (Today they still produce other products at the distillery but not under their name.)

As mentioned in this post, the Dutch were the first to make Curacao using bitter oranges from that island. When the French became famous for their liqueurs, curacao evolved into triple sec.

Cointreau initially produced a product called curacao, and then a 'curacao triple sec' and then a 'triple sec."

Eventually many brands of triple sec came on the market. Cointreau's label used to have a big "Triple Sec" and a small "Cointreau" but later reversed their relative size. Today Cointreau doesn't even use 'triple sec' in its descriptor.

As we know, the 'sec' refers to the dry, or less sweetened style of liqueur. Their opinion about the word 'triple' (the two arguments being either triple distillation/triple refined, or three times as orangey) is three times as concentrated orange flavor. The company had also produced a 'triple creme de menthe' and other 'triple' products, which I think backs up this argument.
October 28, 2011
Solid Liquids: The Deconstructed Midori Sour

Just for fun in the Solid Liquids Project I put some dehydrated Midori to good use.

I made a Deconstructed Midori Sour.

You dip the lemon in dehydrated Midori, bite into the Midori-coated lemon, and then do the shot of vodka.

With people who do the lime-salt-tequila shot, they use the lime to and salt to hide the taste of bad tequila. In this case, the lemons were so tart that the sugar in the Midori wasn't enough to balance it out, so you need to vodka to chase the lemon rather than the other way around.

Anyway, this is all in good fun.

The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link.

October 26, 2011
Three SF Bars Reviewed on DiffordsGuide

I wrote a new bar report for CLASS Magazine online.

It includes short reviews of Jasper's Corner Tap, Harry Denton's Starlight Room, and Wo Hing General Store.

The story is here.

October 25, 2011