Gaijin Tonic

I’ve recently happened upon a pretty good site called Buy Absinthe- link to homepage Buy Absinthe, which is all about the incredibly strong and supposedly hallucinogenic green booze favoured by Victorian poets and painters.
As an aspiring writer and generally bohemian kind of a character, I am drawn to this potent green elixir and I sometimes glug it to fuel my late night literary endeavours. This brain-scrambling concoction gives you a weird buzz, and makes wandering around the day-glo streets of Tokyo even more fun and surreal than before.

It’s an acquired taste- my first impression was of ouzo mixed with mouthwash, but I grew to like it after a few helpings.
Of course, Absinthe can be expensive and hard to get hold of in Japan, but you can order a variety of different blends for decent prices from Buy Absinthe Alcohol, and they’ll deliver it. It’s an ideal gift for the jaded drunkard who has drunk everything (such as me).

Epicurean absinthe purists wouldn’t approve of guzzling the green potion straight from the bottle just to get utterly wasted. According to the site, the best way to appreciate it is to place sugar on a spoon and gently pour the Absinthe over the sugar, then slowly pour some water over the sugar until it melts, and stir with the spoon.
(Sticking a funnel into your mouth and upending the bottle into it is not advised, then.)

There are almost as many traditions and rules as there are at a Japanese tea ceremony. I wonder if I could advertise my services as an Absinthe master and teach people how to mix the stuff. I could probably blag this after reading the site.

This site only sells the classy, good Absinthe. We’re told to buy the French and Swiss brands which stick to the original recipe, and avoid low-price bottles from Eastern Europe- the ones which are about 90% proof and have over-the-top, trippy labels with pictures of spaced-out hippies, and names like “Head-Mash Absinthe.”

You can even buy absinthe-spoons and fountains from Buy Absinthe Alcohol, and have a decadent, psychedelic version of a fondue party.
It’s obviously been put together by someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of Absinthe- there’s a comprehensive history of the drink, a list of absinthe cocktails, and various facts and trivia about the intoxicating green moonshine. Did you know…?
- It was invented in the 1600s by a French doctor who used it to cure ailments like period pains and rheumatism.
- It was banned during World War 1 because it was thought to make people lazy or imbalanced and likely to commit a crime? Yikes!
- It’s illegal to make or sell it in the US, but not to drink or own it. That’s a tricky rule to get around!

Anyway, I’m getting thirsty, so here’s a link to the site: Buy Absinthe Alcohol
Read more about absinthe on this absinthe blog.

This is the second in my occasional series of tributes to Japanese booze heroes. Rather worryingly, I’m only at number two and already I’m reduced to writing about a fictional character. Ryuu Sasakura is the altruistic hero of the Japanese comic book and animation series “Bartender.”

Ryuu is a genius cocktail maker, who runs a bar named “Eden Hall”. He is so skilled at mixing drinks that his cocktails are known as the “Glass of the Gods.”
Ryuu is a selfless character, a bit like the guy in “Highway to Heaven,” the guy in “Quantum Leap” or the dog in “The Littlest Hobo.” In each episode of the TV show, various troubled misfits come into his bar and tell him their problems. Ryuu then helps them out, always in a way that is tenuously connected to whatever cocktail is featured that week. For example, one week he cheers up a guy who’s having trouble with his boss… by mixing him a daiquiri. In another episode, he cheers up a grieving widower… by mixing him a margarita.

Unsurprisingly, to date the show has only run to eleven episodes. How many alcohol-related story-lines can the producers come up with? What next? Ryuu shows a customer the importance of patience by making them wait three minutes for a pint of Guinness to settle? Ryuu holds back a shit-faced customer’s hair while she pukes into the sink, to demonstrate the power of trust? Nevertheless, Ryuu is yet another shining example of the admirable Japanese trait of taking enormous pride in your job, and for that, he deserves a toast.

Here’s the official Bartender website.

I’ve just discovered the Wikipedia page about Sake-based cocktails. There are some unusual recipes for people feeling adventurous or masochistic.

One cocktail I noticed was the ridiculous “Duncan McLeod”, a cocktail named after a character in the television programme “Highlander,” a spin-off from the movie of the same name. What an unbelievably obscure reference! The movie would have been an odd enough choice to name a cocktail after, but the TV show…?

The “Duncan McLeod” cocktail consists of equal parts sake, scotch whisky and coke. The cola represents the English actor (he’s called Adrian Paul, apparently,) the whisky is his Scottish character in the show, and the sake is the Japanese samurai sword he brandishes. I’m reminded of Highlander’s catchphrase, “There can be only one!” Presumably he was referring to the Duncan McLeod Cocktail- who’d want to drink that twice?!

The other cocktail which caught my eye was the truly grotesque “Nog-a-Sake”, which is three parts sake and one part eggnog. This horrific concoction could only have been conceived by a desperate alcoholic with an almost-bare liquor cabinet on Christmas day. Still, it might be a good way to make use of unwanted bottles of eggnog and sake which you’ve received as Christmas presents.

I recently learned of a cocktail known as “The Japanese Cocktail.” Nobody knows how the cocktail received it’s name (including my local Japanese bartenders, who’ve never heard of it) but it appeared in the first ever bar-tending book, “How To Mix Drinks” (1867) by Jerry Thomas.
Suffice to say, it probably isn’t actually Japanese. According to DrinkBoy.com, “The Japanese Cocktail is a wonderful cocktail that is very easy to make. It’s slightly sweet almond flavor makes it a very approachable cocktail for almost anybody.”
Here’s the recipe:
* 2 ounces brandy
* 1/2 ounce orgeat (almond syrup)
* 2 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
Sounds good! Unfortunately, orgeat and Angostura bitters are not easy to get hold of in these parts, so I won’t be trying it anytime soon.

Another cocktail, which I have actually tried, is “the Japanese Slipper.” It’s quite easy to get the ingredients for this one, (including Midori, a sweet melon cordial made by Suntory.)
Here’s the recipe from the International Bartenders Association (IBA) website:

JAPANESE SLIPPER (cocktail glass )
3.0 cl. Midori
3.0 cl. Cointreau
3.0 cl. Lemon juice
Add all ingredients into cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with a slice of honeydew melon.

The Japanese Slipper is rather sweet and fruity- a little girly for my taste. Much more up my street is “the Kamikaze,” another cocktail which I highly doubt originates in Japan, but is guaranteed to get the party started. Here’s the recipe for that, also from the IBA site-

KAMIKAZE (cocktail glass )
3.0 cl. Vodka
3.0 cl. Cointreau
3.0 cl. Lemon juice
Add all ingredients into cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Why not try all three inauthentic Japanese cocktails in a row to jump start your evening? Might be a laugh.