The Starfall. It's like drinking a cup of laundry detergent. My favorite! The best way I can describe it is that it tastes a little bit like eating a bar of soap.

Jokes aside, it sounds like a complete mess with the butterfly pea flower, hinoki, rooibos, yuzu, lemon, vanilla, lavender and egg white. But everything works really well together. The finished drink is balanced and floral.

I originally wanted to call it The Tide Pod because I have a habit of giving my cocktails stupid names. One of my other cocktails is called the Nut Punch.

Recipe:

• 45 ml butterfly pea flower and hinoki infused gin
• 20 ml fresh lemon juice
• 5 ml yuzu juice
• 20 ml vanilla lavender syrup 58 brix
• Rooibos tea
• 1 egg white

Dry shake, then shake with ice. Double strain into a coupe or nick n nora. Garnish with a butterfly pea flower petal.

I don't recommend using a 2:1 syrup here. The drink benefits from having a little more water, otherwise the syrup makes everything too thick and the mouthfeel gets overwhelming.

Infused Gin:

• 500ml of budget gin (beefeater, tanq, bombay S)
• 50 butterfly pea flowers
• 10g Hinoki
• Sous vide at 65c for 2hrs.

Vanilla Lavender Syrup

• 300 ml water give or take
• 500 g sugar
• 20 ml vodka
• 10 g lavender
• 10 ml vanilla extract
• Optional: a little cardamom and clove.

It's definitely a bit of a pain to make at home, especially if you need to source hinoki. I can get it pretty easily here in Japan, but I'm not sure how easy it is to find elsewhere.

Summer is a really slow time for cocktail bars and tourism in Japan. I have tons of time to play around with new ideas. I have a few new inventions I will share soon.

Bar: Desperate Prayer | Osaka, Japan

So I have no idea what the ingredients were as Japanese bars are generally no menu or just make things omakase. I'll try to describe the recipe to the best of my abilities. I also added some photos of Nagoya and the train ride there from Osaka just for your entertainment.

The cocktails I had were

#1 Summer bloom

This is a verjus, calvados, bergamot type drink. The garnish is a seasonal japanese vegetable somewhere in between ginger and a shallot. It's called Myoga. I love it in sudachi udon.

#2 Becoming margarita

Tequila, Cointreau, cardamom, some sort of acid, a foam, salt.

Side note: He makes some of the best food in Nagoya by far. Michelin level dishes imo but at cocktail bar prices.

Bar is: レシ or Bar Récit | Nagoya, Japan.

(This post is more about technique than recipe. I also decided to include a video. I don't know if I will include a video every time, but if it is well recieved, I will continue to do it. I hope the mods are okay with it.)

The El Presidente

The El Presidente was created in Havana during Cuba’s golden age of cocktails in the 1910s–1920s, likely named in honor of Cuban president Gerardo Machado. It became a favorite among Havana’s political elite.

We add all of the ingredients to a goblet or wine glass and create a homogenous mixture before we add ice. We also add the scent of a cinnamon stick which really compliments the aroma of the cocktail. We are also just obsessed with cinnamon.

Because the cocktail has already been mixed before adding ice, you can stir slowly to add as little water as possible while chilling the solution. I prefer using ingredients that are fridge temp, but we are limited on storage. make sure to chill your glass before pouring.

I won't get into how we make our tobacco bitters on this because that would be a long explanation. Abbott's bitters are very similar, just use that.

Here is the video link to me making the cocktail, I hope the mods don't have an issue with this:

LINK: https://youtu.be/Dg2OS86Fg7A

Recipes

Cafe La Trova Miami Recipe
45ml Banks 7 Rum
22.5ml Vermouth Bianco
15ml Cointreau
2.5ml Grenadine

Desperate Prayer Recipe "Cigarro"
45ml Appleton 12y (we prefer the extra funk of Jamaican Rum)
20ml Dry Vermouth (less sweetness allows us to use more grenadine)
15ml Cointreau
5ml Homemade Grenadine
1 dash Tobacco Bitters (or abbott's bitters)
3~5 drops saline solution

Homemade Grenadine (68 brix)
-250ml pomegranate juice (fresh squeezed preferred, but 100% juice works well)
-10ml vodka
-500g white sugar adjust until you get 68 brix.
-5g hibiscus
-2g rose petal
-2g orange peel
-1ml of vanilla extract

About stirring

This section is long. Please skip if you don't like reading.

I’ve rarely had a cocktail in the States that has genuinely impressed me. That’s obviously subjective, and there are plenty of excellent American bartenders, but I’ve found that the Japanese approach to technique and attention to detail resonates with me more.

Technique can absolutely become dogmatic. Not every Japanese bartender is exceptional, and some traditions are probably more ritual than necessity. But Japan has an unusually deep culture of precision in bartending, and when that precision is paired with genuine skill and understanding, the results can be magical.

I also think there are lessons here that could be useful anywhere. The challenge is that a lot of this level of attention takes time. A bartender might be willing to spend several minutes refining a Manhattan, but most guests understandably aren't looking to wait 15 minutes for one. There's always a balance between craftsmanship, hospitality, consistency, and practicality.

Stirring is a very difficult technique. It took me years before I could call myself decent at it.

To learn to stir properly, you should start by practicing with an empty mixing glass. The goal is to run the back of the spoon around the glass in a continuous circle without making any clinking noises. It should be a smooth silent swish...Alliteration...

You need to release all tension in your hand and elbow. If your entire hand is making a circular motion, you’re stirring incorrectly. The key is to push and pull the spoon instead of trying to make it go in a circle. The bar spoon will travel up and down between your fingers. Instead, your wrist should stay locked in place while your fingers and the twist of your wrist do the work. When an s-tier bartender like Moriwaki Daichi stirs a Martini, it’s unreal how much speed he can effortlessly generate.

There are many schools of thought when it comes to stirring, and the technique depends on the desired outcome. During hot summer days, I prefer a slightly more diluted cocktail, while in winter, I might want something more spiritforward.

A good bartender will assess their guest’s condition and determine how much dilution and air to incorporate into the cocktail.

By stirring more slowly and using pre-chilled ingredients, you can create a silkier, more viscous texture. Stirring more quickly incorporates more air into the cocktail, which can help soften the perception of ethanol.

However, it’s important to note that stirring too quickly or making unnecessary noise can agitate the spirit and bring out harsh ethanol spice. They call this bruising (which is a stupid name) but it's absolutely real and I used to doubted it myself until I was humbled by a Japanese bartender. It applies mostly to clear white spirits. Those flavors can be hidden in a sour style shaken cocktail, but they become much more prominent in a delicate cocktail like a martini. Even in a shaken cocktail, going too aggro on the shake, will absolutely destroy the integrity of the spirit and bring out harsh spice character of a spirit. Don't believe me? try it yourself with an AB test.

in the future I will cover juicing, shaking, throwing, etc. Juicing citrus especially is a very very important topic. take your sours to the next level.

What do you think is more important? Technique, or recipe?

Bar: Desperate Prayer | Osaka, Japan

Note: No this is not AI-written. Yes its long, details are important. I appreciate people finding typos and mistakes in my posts, it really helps. I just really want to make sure we are focusing the conversation on learning and discussion, not just finding things to criticize. 🙏 thanks.

The Day-O: Salted Caramel + Banana Cocktail

The production is complex, but the end result is simple in flavor. The idea is cohesive.

The theme here is "simplicity can sometimes be complex." Think about the rusty nail. The Drambuie liqueur has dozens of herbs and spices. Scotch is a complex process to create. Yet it's a two ingredient cocktail. It's "simple." The skill required to make a delicious rusty nail is quite high.

On to the recipe

I will write the actual recipe first, and then a DIY version you can make at home.

This is one of the cocktails we serve. Its basically a banana version of a Rusty Nail/Godfather. A little sweet, rich, winter spicy, and pretty easy to drink. A fun approachable cocktail imo.

Bar: Desperate Prayer | Osaka, Japan

Here is the actual recipe we use

For the rum infusion per liter of Jamaican rum (We usually make around 3L at a time.)

• 1L jamaican rum
• 2 Bananas
• Brown sugar to coat bananas lightly
• 100g Unsalted Butter
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 10 Allspice berries
• (want more complex flavors?? you can play with coffee beans, vanilla, orange, chocolate, etc)

Caramelize the bananas with brown sugar in a saucepan, then add the butter and cook it until the butter starts to brown.

Put everything into a sous vide bag with the Jamaican rum, cinnamon, allspice....

Sous vide at 65°C for 2~3 hours.. freeze overnight or at least a few hours. open bag in the corner.

It'll come out pretty cloudy. You can use pectinase if you have it, then filter it. We can't really find pectinase in Japan, so we just run it through a nut milk bag into a coffee filter. Honestly... I prefer it slightly cloudy anyway. It gives it a nicer mouthfeel.

For a 700ml premix:

• 500ml Rum Infusion
• 175ml Giffard Banane du Brésil
• 5g+ salt adjust to taste
• 8~12ml Angostura bitters adjust to taste

Mix everything together and adjust to taste. Depending on how sweet your bananas and other ing are, how salty your saline is, and how the infusion came out, you might need to tweak the ratios a teeny weeny bit.

For garnish, we usually use cheap salted caramel wafer from the supermarket that taste really good. Obviously you can use better rum if you want. Worthy Park 109, Appleton 12, or Xaymaca would be great. But honestly, start with something cheap and experiment.

Easy DIY home bartender version

PectinX, sous vide, nut milk bag ...yeah... not everyone is a career mixologist. At home, the most effort I'll put into a cocktail is whiskey, ice, soda, stir with my finger. So I am posting a very easy version. you just have to make cinnamon syrup and saline solution. So, mix together...

• 50ml Jamaican rum
• 15ml Giffard Banane du Brésil
• 5ml Cinnamon syrup
• 5~8 drops Saline solution
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Mix to taste until you get the balance you like. It won't taste exactly the same as the infused version, but it'll get you pretty close.

and so...

For my next cocktails I will include pictures of the process as well. My next cocktail will probably be the Nut Punch... next week. Maybe I'll do a classic and explain japanese cocktail technique too. I think technique is more important than recipe innovation.

Note: No this is not AI written, yes it's long. I like to give as much detail as possible to help people who actually care about improving their cocktail game.

edit: I never thought one of my posts would get 100k views and 400 likes. I will put more effort into these and include a quick video and more pictures of the process. I got an ASMR mic too.

Coffee and Pineapple are like Peanut butter and jelly. I made a cocktail that is a riff on the Mr. Bali Hai. We are adding it to our menu ASAP. It doth slappeth much.

We struggled to find a name because バリ / Bali in Japanese means urine. Hai / はい means distribution.

The name has been finalized. We are calling it the ミスター・帰らない ( which means Mr. Kaerenai or Mr. Doesn't go home) because if you miss your last train in Osaka, you will be taking an expensive taxi or drinking all night. So in order to stay awake, you need something that will keep you up and mess you up. I was going to call it the Dotonbori / 道頓堀杯 but it sounds like a sporting event trophy according to my Japanese friends.

On to the cocktail...

I always felt lemon juice really got in the way of the pure pineapple flavor. In the cocktail world we usually add pineapple or orange along with lemon or lime to increase acidity. However, I always felt that this adds unnecessary complexity and takes away from the main citrus we want to exhibit. I believe in acid adjusting the lower acid juices. All of my juices are 6% acidity. This allows for more bold flavor of pineapple or orange or grapefruit because we remove the lemon or lime. I add 300ml of pineapple juice to 15~20g of citric acid and stir it in. Depends on your pineapple juice's acidity.

I use a blend of rums. Appleton Signature by itself is a bit one dimensional, so I add some OFTD to give more character. You can use all smith n cross if you want proper tiki strength.

I recommend a very high quality pineapple juice. Organic, grass fed, free range pineapple juice. Fresh if possible.

Mr. Black is my choice, or a high quality coffee liqueur. I would not use a very sweet one. Try to find a balanced one that works for you. You can try to pull a shot of espresso drink some and add 10ml meanwhile raising the syrup amount a tad.

I prefer cassia cinnamon over ceylon cinnamon for my syrup. Just boil simple syrup with two cassia cinnamon sticks and let it sit on your stove overnight.

A drop or two of vanilla extract can really round out the flavors. You can even play around with some allspice dram.

Finish off with Abbott's bitters or angostura in a pinch.

The DIY home bartender recipe

30ml Appleton Signature

15ml OFTD

30ml Good Quality Pineapple Juice (acid adjusted 6%)

10ml Mr. Black

10ml Cinnamon Syrup (62 Brix)

1 drop vanilla extract (optional)

2 dash Abbott's Bitters (angostura is okay too)

Here is the actual recipe used at Desperate Prayer.

Here is the actual recipe we use at the bar, but this is a bit complex. Some geek out there will want this one, so here it is.

30ml Appleton Signature

15ml OFTD

30ml Fresh Okinawan Pineapple Juice (acid adjusted 6%)

10ml Homemade sous vide coffee liqueur (agricole base)

10ml Chai Syrup

1 dash Homemade Cigar Bitters

Chai Syrup: big on the cinnamon...then allspice, cardamom, anise, vanilla bean, ginger, demerara sugar, water and pasteurizing spray....Sous vide 65C for 2hrs...aim for 62 brix.

Cigar Bitters: cinnamon, coffee, anise, clove, vanilla, lapsang souchong, vetiver root, angelica root, vodka, sous vide at 65C for 4 hours. Can't remember the ratios off the top of my head.

Quick note about Japan. Our jiggers are side A: 45, 30, 15ml. Side B: 30, 20, 10ml. Cocktails usually stop at 45ml of base spirit. Even our glassware is designed for smaller cocktails. Please feel free to increase volume proportionally if that is what you desire.

Pictures are bad, I'm not a photographer, 😐 sorry.

Edit: It seems everyone likes this detailed recipe content. I will post once a week my recipes from Desperate Prayer including a easy DIY versions as well.

Let me know what you think. If you make it, please tell me. Send me a pic.

Masaji-no

This is supposed to be a type of smokey, perfume type of sour that is non alcoholic. I would use gin if it was alcoholic.

This is one of many non alcoholic cocktails I know how to make. This sour is a tea made of hibiscus, rose, and smokey tea. I also add grapefruit, yuzu and our spice syrup to balance it. Some vanilla oil as a finishing touch.

45ml Tea blend 22.5ml grapefruit juice acid adjusted to 6% 7.5ml yuzu juice (ゆずしぼり) 20ml spice syrup 1 dash of vanilla oils Rose petal garnish Shake in a cobbler using clear ice.

Spice syrup - 3 cassia cinnamon sticks, 5g roasted allspice berries, 5 cloves, 1 star anise, 250ml water, 400g brown sugar.

Tea blend - 20g lapsang suchong, 3g rose petal, 3g hibiscus, 500ml water.

This cocktail is from Osaka Japan.

Comment if you need help with anything.

This is as guide on how to make our Estus tiki cocktail.

The estus is a nod to the Don's Pupule or Nui Nui. Every component is designed to replace something expensive, while still hitting the same balance you’d expect from a proper tiki drink. To make it correctly, you have to treat each part with intention, because the final drink is only as good as the prep behind it. We used sous vide to bring out more of the winter spice flavors in our bitters and syrups.

Start with the acid-adjusted orange juice, because this is doing the job that lime normally would. Take 300ml of fresh orange juice and strain out all pulp, this part matters more than people think, because pulp dulls the perception of acidity and shortens shelf life. Add 20g of citric acid directly into the juice, seal it, and shake until it’s fully dissolved. What you’re doing here is pushing the orange juice up to roughly lime-level acidity while keeping its natural sweetness and aroma. Let it settle in the fridge before service so the flavors integrate. It’ll hold for about three days, but it’s at its best in the first 24 hours when the brightness is sharpest.

For the cinnamon syrup, you’re chasing depth rather than just sweetness. Combine 500g white sugar, 250ml water, and 3 cinnamon sticks in a sealed bag or jar. Add about 25ml of overproof spirit, not for flavor, but to help extraction. Sous vide this at around 65–70°C for 3–4 hours. This low temperature pulls out the essential oils from the cinnamon without flattening them the way boiling can. After the bath, you’ll notice the sugar may not be fully dissolved, that’s normal. Finish it briefly on heat just until the syrup becomes fully uniform. Don’t aggressively boil it; you’re just correcting texture, not extracting more flavor. Strain and cool.

The pimento dram follows a similar logic but needs a bit more prep upfront. Take 40g of allspice berries, lightly crush them, and toast them just until fragrant, this wakes up the oils and gives you a warmer, rounder spice profile. Add those to a vessel with half a cinnamon stick, 5g clove, and about 1g black pepper, then pour in 300ml of neutral grain spirit. Sous vide again at 65–70°C for 3–4 hours. The result should be intensely aromatic but still clean. Strain it well; any fine sediment will keep extracting and can throw off balance over time.

Your tiki bitters are where everything tightens up. In 200ml unaged rum and 100ml high-proof neutral spirit (like spiritus), combine angelica root, galangal root, roasted almonds, clove, vanilla oil, lime oil, almond extract, allspice, and star anise. Sous vide this blend at 65–70°C for 5–6 hours, then strain thoroughly with coffee filters multiple times. The bitters should be intense but not muddy, each spice should read clearly in the nose.

Once everything is prepped, the build is straightforward but still precise. Into a shaker, add 45ml gold Puerto Rican rum, 15ml OFTD, 30ml of your acid-adjusted orange juice, 15ml cinnamon syrup, and 15ml pimento dram. Add a small drop of vanilla essence, not enough to taste like vanilla, just enough to round the edges, and 3 dashes of your tiki bitters. Fill with ice and shake hard for about 6 seconds. You can bump up the gold rum to 45 if you want a full sized american tiki cocktail.

Strain into a chilled glass. Because pours are smaller in Japan, this drink should feel tight and focused rather than oversized. What you end up with is something that hits like a classic tiki profile, bright, spiced, layered, but built entirely around ingredients that make sense for running a bar here. It’s efficient, repeatable, and most importantly, it doesn’t taste like you cut any corners.

I own desperate prayer in Osaka Japan and we do tiki cocktails. We want to put tiki on the map in Japan. I want to post all of our recipes here so everyone can make them at home. Let me know what you guys think!

This is a cocktail we sell at our bar Desperate Prayer in Osaka, Japan.

Day-O

A rich blend of Jamaican rum and banana liqueur, butter-washed and infused with ripe bananas, accented by chocolate, Cinnamon,and a hint of salt. Inspired by Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)...a tribute to the rhythms and history of Jamaica’s banana trade.

45ml Butter washed banana infused Jamaican rum
15ml banana liqueur
2.5ml chocolate liqueur
2.5ml cinnamon syrup
1 dash of saline solution

The Day-O is built around a rich, layered base of butter-washed, banana-infused Jamaican rum, supported by subtle accents of chocolate, cinnamon, smoke, and saline. Each component is prepared with precision using sous vide techniques to extract clean, controlled flavors while maintaining clarity and balance.

The foundation of the drink begins with the rum infusion. Using Appleton Estate Signature as the base, ripe bananas are first caramelized with brown sugar until they develop a deep golden color and a concentrated, almost jam-like aroma. This step is critical, as it transforms the banana from something fresh and bright into something darker, richer, and more integrated with the rum’s natural molasses and oak notes.

Once caramelized, the bananas are combined with the rum and unsalted butter, then sealed and placed into a sous vide bath at 55°C for two hours. This gentle extraction pulls flavor, fat, and texture into the spirit without introducing harshness. After the infusion is complete, the mixture is put in the freezer for 2 hours and strained through a nut milk bag to remove the bulk solids, and then passed again through a coffee filter to achieve clarity. If needed, the liquid can be chilled to solidify any remaining fat, which is then removed, leaving behind a silky, rounded rum with a smooth mouthfeel and a deep banana profile.

The cinnamon syrup is prepared separately, using a 2:1 sugar-to-water ratio to create a rich, weighty sweetness that matches the intensity of the base spirit. Cinnamon sticks are added to the mixture, which is then sealed and cooked sous vide at 80°C for four hours. This longer, hotter extraction produces a clean and focused cinnamon flavor without the bitterness that can come from traditional boiling methods. The result is a syrup that is both bold and refined, delivering warmth without overpowering the drink.

The tobacco bitters are another key component, providing structure and complexity. A blend of cinnamon stick, coffee beans, lapsang souchong tea, allspice berries, cloves, cacao nibs, and angelica root is combined with high-proof neutral spirit. This mixture is sous vide at 80°C for four hours, allowing the flavors to integrate quickly and thoroughly. The lapsang souchong contributes a distinct smoky character, while the coffee, cacao, and spices build a profile that evokes tobacco without actually using it. After infusion, the bitters are strained carefully...ideally through a coffee filter...to ensure a clean final product suitable for precise dosing.

A simple saline solution, mixed at a 3:1 ratio of water to salt, is used to enhance and unify the flavors. Though used sparingly, it plays an important role in amplifying sweetness, smoothing edges, and tying together the drink’s more intense elements.

When assembling the cocktail, the prepared ingredients are combined in a mixing glass. The build consists of 45 ml of the infused rum, 15 ml of banana liqueur, 2.5 ml of Bols Crème de Cacao White, 2.5 ml of the cinnamon syrup, two dashes of the tobacco bitters, and a single dash of saline solution. The mixture is stirred over ice until properly chilled and diluted, then strained into a chilled Nick & Nora or coupe glass.

The final drink presents a balance of tropical sweetness with a healthy balance of saltiness. On the nose, it offers smoke, baking spice, cacao, and a subtle cooked banana aroma. The palate is smooth and layered, with the butter-washed rum providing body and depth, while the banana, cinnamon, and chocolate weave together in a controlled, elegant way. The finish is wet, lightly leathery, and persistent, leaving a warming spice that lingers without becoming heavy.