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| Not doing a great job of capturing the magic of these cocktails, Pat!!!! Anyway this one smelled good spoiler they all smelled good k bye. |
Thanks to my brother-in-law, I had solid marching orders on cocktail bars to explore in Tokyo. This is another thing I enjoy about travel: tailoring to where I'm at. In Italy, it was wine bars and appertivo all the way (well, and one gin/coffee bar of transcendence in Florence). In England, I became a morning tea fella and an evening alehound at the pubs. In Scotland, sampling scotch at various pubs. Following the local specialty is pretty rewarding if you have solid info! And thanks to Brian, I did.
Tokyo's cocktail culture inspired Brian's own career path, and it's not hard to see why: this is a scene devoted to the near-religious study of flavors and balance, of making devotional work of the pairing and technique that goes into a cocktail. And at its best, it combines this meticulous obsession with an almost-improvisational approach. These bars don't have menus, y'see. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
As I said in an earlier post, Tokyo is a very vertical city, and the best bars seem to be those which are not visible at street level. The two that surgically removed my brain and replaced it with a white-hot furnace were Bar High Five, located in a second sub-basement in Ginza, and Bar Benfiddich, on the eighth floor of a midrise tower in Shinjuku. Benfiddich doesn't even have street-level signage; you have to enter the vestibule of what looks to be an apartment building, and only a listing on the elevator directory tips you to the fact that yes, this is the right spot. Both places have a kind of kinship to sushi bars: small (probably 18-25 seats max) and with a minimal team putting out exquisite product, typically one bartender working the drinks with the assistance of 2-3 bar backs.
Bar High Five is (as I understand it) what basically kicked off the cocktail renaissance here, and my understanding is that they have a reputation for (a) brilliant drinks, and (b) steering you toward their stable of standards. Like most cocktail bars in this city, your evening starts with a conversation: what do you like in a cocktail? Perhaps some Japanese whiskey? How about an old fashioned? Then they set to mixing and pass you a tiny snack with your drink. (This, like so many other things, reminded me of Italy, another country obsessive about food and drink, and another one where drinking without at least a little food would be extremely weird.)
The drinks were delicious and the vibe was great, but the real magic of Bar High Five was the bartender. The founder was mostly absent (he stopped by to shout about a few things at some point) but his protege, a whippet-lean blur of muscle and speed, was stunning. Her moves were precise, aggressive, with no energy wasted. The cocktails she produced were superb. And I'd be raving more about her and her establishment if I hadn't followed this experience with Benfiddich.
To reach Benfiddich, you take an elevator up to the eighth floor; coming off the elevator, you find your way to what feels like a fire escape before you open a door to your left and enter a velvety curtain-draped hallway. At 5:30, when I entered, harpsichord music was playing (later, jazz would overtake the soundscape). The room is not dimly lit, but glowingly - as if by candles, a handful of warm pools of light from lamps drawing you into the space. Perhaps a dozen seats at the bar and maybe four tables. Behind the bar, an oil painting of a pheasant (if I recall correctly) and the white-jacketed bartender, whose smile is Mephistophelean.
It was me and one regular when I arrived; the bar would gradually fill up with other Tokyo regulars, with most of the visiting Americans and Europeans taking tables. But the bar was the place to be, in part because here, the conversation with the bartender wasn't about steering you to a classic selection, but about building a drink from the ground up.
"What do you like to drink?"
"Well, I tend to like whiskeys, smoke, bitter, cocktails that are maybe a little more dry."
"I see. And would you like some Japanese spirits in there?"
"That would be great!"
"I think I know what I want to make you."
He wandered away and returned with a branch. Like, a spindly, thin branch covered in tiny pods. "This is from my farm," he explained, extending the branch to me. "It's wormwood - do you know wormwood?"
"I do! My hometown actually has a liquor we distill from it, we..." I realize there's no reason to explain Malört to one of the best bartenders on the planet.
"Yes, and it's one of the main ingredients in absinthe. Here, crush one of these pods and taste it, I'll build the cocktail from this base."
I crushed, I tasted. It was acrid, bitter, lingering. I laughed. "Yeah, that's a start."
He nodded and took out a granite mortar from beneath the bar and a giant wooden pestle - the thing looked like (and may have been) a whittled down limb of a tree, easily a foot or two long. Plucking pods from his branch, he tossed them in the bowl and started to grind them with the branch, gradually adding liquid from several bottles: sake, shochu, whiskey (a trifecta of native Japanese products), plus fresh sage leaves. He pounded and stirred, lifting the pestle and expertly catching a drip on his hand behind his thumb, slurping it up and nodding in approval before sieving the concoction into a glass.
(Every single glass that came out over the course of this night - not just for me, but for every patron - was different. Not just "rocks vs. highball" - every single glass was different.)
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| Like, every single glass. |
Finally, things wrapped up with an amaro-based cocktail. (My Italian wanderings gave me a massive love for digestivos and amari, especially as evening-closers.) This conversation, as the bar was now jam-packed, was with one of the bar backs. "What spirit would you like us to build that with?" [I glaze over and stammer aimlessly.] "We decide?" "Perfect, yes please."
He wanders over to the bartender and starts whispering in his ear. The bartender perks up and looks to my corner of the bar. "Amaro?" I nod. "I have just the thing." Another customer down the bar asks to be cut in on the deal.
The bartender starts pouring thick, viscous amari into bourdeaux glasses, swirling both glasses by hand as he gently mingles the ingredients. This time, when he goes to take a whiff, his eyes pop and he growls "wow." The aroma hits my nose as soon as the drink touches the bar in front of me. He walks me through the cocktail: fernet from the '60s, a 70s sweet vermouth, chartreuse from the '80s, and calvados apple brandy. The drink flecks the glass. It is the most aromatic, fruity-bitter drink I have ever had. It's still reverberating now, almost five months after the fact. As I drink it, he walks by with a silver tray. He sets the tray down in front of me.
"Since you said this is your last drink... these are house-made chocolates with punt e mes. Very boozy, but it goes so well with the drink." Well, yes. Perfect as everything else.
Anyhow, this is the most niche post possible, but here's the point: one of the things I love about Japanese and Italian cultures are that they are enraptured by the daily pleasures, at every end of the scale. A snack on the street is as perfectly conceived as a tasting menu (ok I haven't really done tasting menus in either country, but you know what I mean). There's a pronounced sense of the virtue of dedication to craft, to perfecting an ingredient, to knowing the season down to the day and keeping everyone connected to where you are and when you are.
Excellence is a thing worth celebrating; it is not easily won, and people like the fella who runs Bar Benfiddich are not getting rich off of it. It's admirable, that love and dedication, and getting to glimpse that world in passing, to see those values play out in three drinks and one excessive snack, is a rare privilege.
So, you know. Get to Japan, feast thoroughly, and then taste as many things as Hiroyasu Kayama can devise for you. You'll regret not a second of the journey.
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Up next: Mexico City! Or whatever intemperate ramblings come between now and when I get those photos/videos sorted out!
OK!!!! GOODNIGHT!
