Blog
Stories from behind the bar: cocktails, ramen, Japanese culture, and life on the Lower East Side.
WhiskyMar 27, 2025Akkeshi Taisetsu: A Whisky Named for a Two-Week SeasonAkkeshi is releasing one whisky for each of the 24 sekki, the old solar calendar that divides the year into fifteen-day seasons. Taisetsu is the deep of winter.WhiskyMar 11, 2025Suntory: The Company That Sold Japan Whisky TwiceSuntory built Japan's first whisky distillery in 1923, watched the category collapse decades later, and revived it in 2008 by teaching the country to drink highballs.CocktailsMar 11, 2025Pa'lante Rum: What Blanco and Reposado Actually ChangeWe pour a New York craft rum in two expressions, and the difference between them is a few months of oak. That turns out to matter more than people expect.CocktailsMar 9, 2025Ohoro Gin: Niseko, and a Botanical That Predates HopsOhoro is made in Niseko by the Hakkaisan sake group, and one of its Hokkaido botanicals is the herb Northern Europe used to bitter beer before hops existed.FoodMar 9, 2025Three Ways We Do Fries, and the One That Started as a JokeOkonomiyaki fries, loaded fries, and a bag you shake yourself. The first of those was meant as a joke, and it is now one of our best sellers.BeerMar 9, 2025Hitachino Nest: Craft Beer From an 1823 Sake BreweryBrewed by Kiuchi Brewery, a sake house with roots dating to 1823, Hitachino Nest is one of Japan's most recognized craft beer names. We pour ten of their brews.WhiskyMar 6, 2025The Two Scotches on Our List: Laphroaig 10 and Macallan 18An izakaya doesn't need a Scotch section. We keep two, at opposite ends of what Scotch does: one medicinal and smoky, one entirely sherried.WhiskyMar 3, 2025Yame Whisky: From a Tea Region, by a Sake BreweryYame in Fukuoka is known for gyokuro, Japan's most shaded and most expensive green tea. The whisky comes from a sake house there, and it is why we have a matcha highball.CocktailsMar 3, 2025Setouchi Gin: Lemon and Green Tea, From Japan's Lemon CountryThe Seto Inland Sea grows most of Japan's lemons. This gin is built on that, then blended with green tea, which is the part that keeps it from being one-dimensional.WhiskyMar 3, 2025Ohishi: Japanese Whisky Made From Rice, Not BarleyOhishi Distillery, founded in 1872, makes whisky from Gohyakumangoku and mochi rice instead of barley. We pour their Islay Cask and Sherry Cask expressions.WhiskyMar 3, 2025Kanosuke: The Kagoshima Whisky Built by a Shochu MakerFounded in 2017 by the shochu house Komasa Jyozo, Kanosuke ages whisky in ex-shochu barrels in a coastal Kagoshima warehouse for a gentle salinity all its own.
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