JAPAN was one of the places where American bartenders, having lost their gigs during Prohibition, arrived in the 1920s and '30s. Cocktail bars in Tokyo have remained a testament to that period, as Sean Muldoon, former head bartender of the Merchant Hotel in Belfast, saw firsthand during a cocktail reconnaissance trip there in 2010.
"It's not like they're trying to recreate a speakeasy," he said. "They really are living as if it were Prohibition, back in those times. The drinks haven't evolved."
That cocktail culture has resurfaced in the United States and Britain, and Mr. Muldoon's new bar, Dead Rabbit Grocery and Grog, scheduled to open this month, is the latest addition to New York's scene.
Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Muldoon about the cocktail trail from Tokyo to London to New York.
Q. What's the cocktail experience like in Tokyo?
A. Drinks at "authentic bars" — as in authentically American, that's what they're called — are usually classics like Tom Collins or an Old Fashioned. They're not overly creative, but the service is unparalleled.
Everything in Japan is about presentation, ritual, hospitality. As soon as you arrive at Bar Four Seasons in the Ginza District, which has nothing to do with the hotel, someone takes your coat, seats you and brings you a hot cloth for your hands. At Bar High Five, you get a good, up-close chance to see Hidetsugu Ueno, the owner, at work. Beside him are two assistants, more like apprentices than bar-backs. They get the glasses, the ice, everything in order before Ueno even starts mixing.
Kazuo Uyeda of Tender Bar, he's a star in this world, credited for that crystal-clear ice that's taken America by storm. He also invented the "hard shake," which supposedly achieves optimum taste and coldness. Very serious guy. He stood behind the bar watching everything.
Q. And in London?
A. The scene was a sad state of affairs before Stanislav Vadrna, a Slovakian guy, introduced the West to Japanese bartending. Now within the last five years, the guys who studied with him, they're taking over, giving London a breath of fresh air.
Marian Beke at Bar Nightjar, one of these make-believe speakeasies, is incredibly inventive, uses lots of garnishes. The cocktail menu is a deck of cards with pictures of the drinks. Here's one: the Mexican Swizzle — tequila, tonka bean liqueur, cinnamon, cacao, vanilla syrup, lime and chili, served in an Acapulco jug.
Alex Kratena at the Artesian Bar at the Langham Hotel, he does cheesy disco drinks, but with a twist. Like a piña colada, he's made it into a rum punch with freshly squeezed pineapple and bitters.
And Erik Lorincz, head bartender of the American Bar at the Savoy, very prestigious position, has brought a sense of youthfulness to the whole thing, made it less stiff. Before him, you'd be knocked back for wearing jeans.
Q. What's your bar adding to New York's scene?
A. I like some cocktail bars here — Maison Premiere, Employees Only and P.D.T. — but I wanted to do a bar that brought together that cocktail culture with a pub. We found a 1820 town house in the Financial District, made the ground floor a workingman's tavern, the kind Irish immigrants would have found here in the 1850s, and the upstairs a seated bar, with 72 cocktails from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. We're trying to tell a historical tale.
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