The fine Japanese art of mixing drinks

This is a "should read" for cocktail lovers.And how about that recipe for the Line Cocktail!

Good libations: Examining the evolution of Japan's rich cocktail culture | The Japan Times:

The Japanese way of bartending is like “a time-capsule of 1930s international bartending,” [ cocktail historian David] Wondrich says. But given its foreign origins, how on earth did Japanese bartenders gain such outsized influence in worldwide mixology? And are they really keepers of the flame for some long-forgotten school of cocktail arts?
To answer those questions, let’s first turn back the clock to 1860. This marks the appearance of Japan’s very first Western-style bar, inside the Yokohama Hotel, also known as the Hotel Hufnagel after its Dutch owner. It was a hastily constructed affair surrounded by a tall fence designed to keep locals out. Perhaps this was for the best: The Hufnagel’s guests were a crusty lot of seamen, merchants and adventurers whose drinking games included firing their revolvers at a clock on the bar’s wall.
“There wasn’t much to do, other than drink,” says Kazuo Ishikura, a writer specializing in the history of Japan’s cocktail culture. “Foreign residents were told by the authorities to stay inside at night. If they ventured out, there was a high chance they’d be surrounded by samurai with a grudge against foreigners.”
A recipe for needing a stiff drink, to be sure. But the Hufnagel offered only beers, wines and liquor — straight up.

“The first bar to serve actual cocktails opened in Yokohama’s International Hotel in 1874,” Ishikura says. “The bartender, Mr. Purvis, was so popular that he was caricatured in the English-language humor magazine Japan Punch.”

Line Cocktail (1924)
All but forgotten today, this represents one of the very earliest cocktails known to have been created locally, by a Japanese bartender named Yonekichi Maeda.

⅓ oz dry gin
⅓ oz Benedictine
⅓ oz Italian vermouth
Two dashes of bitters

Shake over ice, strain and serve. And here’s the trick: Garnish with a small portion of pickled rakkyo onion, slightly crushed. It’s a — how to put this kindly — uniquely local touch.

 

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