These drinks capture Japan’s most fleeting season, says Alice Lascelles.
Cherry blossom season in Japan is one of the wonders of the world – but it’s not just a feast for the eyes, it’s a delight for the nose and palate as well. For those few short weeks, sakura blooms are in and on everything; infused into sake, blended with tea and soda, on rice and cakes, and tweezered into cocktails.
The traditional way to toast the season is with a cup of sakurayu, or cherry blossom tea, made by steeping salted cherry blossoms in hot water to create a delicate infusion. If they’re mixed with tea leaves then it’s more often known as sakura-cha.
Sakura-cha is on the menu at SABO, a tea room by renowned designer Shinichiro Ogata, that’s housed in the stylish Hanamurasaki ryokan in Ishikawa. Made from a blend of cherry blossoms and sencha from a local tea garden, it’s served from early April «until the cherry blossoms fall. It is a quiet and elegant way to welcome the arrival of spring,» says owner Kohei Yamada.
(If you prefer your tea unsalted, Rare Tea Company also does an excellent unsalted tisane made from rare ‘Rumjache’ blossoms hand-picked in the Himalayas, which gives the tea subtle aromas of rose, cranberry, sweet hay, and marzipan-y bitter almond.)
Japan does a great line in drinking vinegars, and for a really refreshing, non-alcoholic highball, I love sakura-infused rice vinegar, mixed 1:4 with sparkling water. The sweet-and-savory recipe by the 300-year-old vinegar maker Tobaya Suten is particularly good – produced seasonally, it sees rice vinegar steeped with blossoms for six months and then seasoned with mirin, sugar, and soy sauce.
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Sakura’s delicate notes also marry well with sake – and Hayashi Honten’s seasonal Hyakujyuro Sakura Junmai Daiginjo is a treat. Palest rosé, with notes of pear, red apple skin, wild strawberry, and a mouthwatering, saline finish: it’s intense but elegant. It’s produced in very small quantities, just once a year, so get it while you can.
(The Hyakujyuro series of sakes is named after a celebrated early 20th-century Kabuki actor from nearby Kakamigahara, who donated 1,200 cherry trees to line the banks of the city’s Sakai River, and which you can still see blossoming today.)
See also: The Japanese Island You’re Not Visiting (But Should Be)
Cherry blossom doesn’t just take place in Japan, of course – it’s also famously good in Washington DC, particularly around the Tidal Basin which is planted with cherry trees that were gifted to the city by Tokyo in 1912 as a token of friendship. To celebrate the blossom season this year, several of the city’s top bars have teamed up to create a two-week Festival of Friendship, during which time they’ll be offering snacks and drinks with a Japanese twist.
Silver Lyan has created a Sakura Vesper, made from blossom-laced Roku gin and a sakura pickled onion; while the Vietnamese restaurant Moon Rabbit is serving a whisky cocktail with a shiso shrub. At Jose Andres’s inventive barmini, meanwhile, you can sample a Hibiki Harmony whisky cocktail with a matcha ‘air’. (The Festival of Friendship runs from March 25 to April 12).
If you’re in London in the next fortnight, make a beeline for the 14-seater Waltz bar in Old Street, where owner Gento Torigato will be serving a seasonal sakura cocktail made with sake, shochu, a dash of bourbon, and cherry blossom liqueur, prepared with all the style and precision of the very best Tokyo bars.
The sake-focused Kioku bar at Raffles London is also offering a trio of blossom-themed drinks, including a sakura-and-red-shiso gimlet, a Martini made with sakura tea-infused vermouth, and a highball of rhubarb, fermented strawberries, and homemade sakura distillate.
A good addition to your cocktail cabinet, meanwhile, would be a bottle of Mancino Sakura Vermouth which marries traditional vermouth botanicals with the gentle florality of Kyoto cherry blossoms and Italian violets. Great with gin or vodka, in a Martini, or simply sipped neat, over ice.
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