One big difference I’ve noticed about going out in Japan as compared to going out back home is what you drink. If I’m out on the town in Perth, I’ll be drinking beer pretty much exclusively. Sure, I might mix it up every now and then with a different kind of beer, a more expensive beer, beer in a jug, or if I’m feeling really exotic possibly even a shot of something or other. Or maybe not. Beer does reign supreme. Here in a Japan it’s a little different. Like the people, the beer here is remarkably homogeneous (ooh, cheap shot, wahey). If you’ve tried one Japanese beer, you’ve pretty much tried them all. If you’re anywhere but a specialist beer place, you can essentially forget about getting anything but basic lager on tap. Sure it’s good, but it does tend to get boring after a while. Enter the cocktail.

Ordering a vodka orange was about as adventurous as I got in clubs in Perth. Even then it was a carefully enunciated “vod.ka. orange, mate” as asking for a screwdriver usually got you a “what the fuck are you on about” look. Cocktails are a lot more popular in Japan for three reasons that I can think of; one, there’s no blokish stigma attached to ordering a huge pink drink and sipping it with a straw. Two, alcopops and premixes haven’t really conquered the female market like they have in Oz. There’s chuhai, which is premix sake and fruit flavouring but it’s pretty generic. You go to the supermarket and there’s maybe 10-15 premix drinks in total, probably a tenth of the range available at the local bottlo in North Perth. Three, cocktails taste great and anyone can enjoy them. You get a good bartender and they can totally roll you a custom drink that you’re going to love.

Take Becak and Simon for example. Simon is a chirpy Indonesian with plans of global cocktail domination. At the moment this plan is confined to one bar in Kobe, but boy, you’d better believe that’s going to change. He’s worked at pretty much every Club Med there is, can juggle bottles, cook beef rendang, and makes the best goddamn cocktails I’ve ever tasted. There is one catastrophic problem though: He’s way too good at it. You order a drink, you watch him pour about half a litre of different spirits into a blender with god knows what else, he does his thing and serves you a drink. You cannot taste the alcohol. Sure there’s a alcoholic twang and your brain’s going, “look, I saw how much alcohol went into that, buddy, watch out” but your tastebuds go “wahee, it’s like delicious fruit juice.” Three drinks later you realise you’re trying to dance on your hands and are making horrific puns about cocktail olives. I’m such a convert.

I’m not sure how my new cocktail swigging habits are going to go down upon my return to Oz, but I’m sure they’ve made me more of a man. Witness:

Posted in Mwah on Thursday March 31, 2005.

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