Asian-Fusion Conquers the Cocktail

Looks like we have an brand-new cocktail trend on our hands. Blame it on the rebirth of the economy. Even Adam Platt agrees:

With the stock market on the upswing, high-end establishments are beginning to fill up again. Formerly baroque, unfashionable phrases like “Asian fusion” are suddenly fashionable again..

And so, with our digits at the ready to dial Asiate, The Biltmore Room and Bao 111's reservation lines, the barkeeps had to get into the mix too. According to Jerry Shriver of USA Today:

Two years ago, chilled sakes moved into the mainstream, then came sake-tinis. Now bartenders are infusing sakes with fruit essences and herbs. Bao 111 and Bao Noodles in New York serve pomegranate-infused hot sake and a pineapple-infused West Indies sake-tini, along with a cucumber-rosemary sake-tini.

Even edgier are cocktails made with shochu, a clear spirit whose taste and texture fall somewhere between sake and vodka. Sushi Samba restaurants in New York, Chicago and Miami Beach just added six shochu cocktails to their menu, including a “chu-tini” with mango juice and pandan (a green plant extract), shochu with a dash of honey and sparkling wine laced with muddled shochu, raspberries and bananas

I guess I should be giddily excited that there is something "new" to try on cocktail lists. (Besides, I'm still allowed cocktails on my new two-week, starch-free diet.) But still, there's something that smacks of 1998 about these drinks. Am I wrong? Besides, I've just never developed a fondess for sake.

So, I think I'll be sticking to more traditional imbibing for the time-being. In fact, might just have to indulge in a classic cocktail or two this weekend. Thankfully, I'm already planning a Friday the 13th jaunt to Bemelman's. If an Aviation Cocktail or Old Fashioned can't chase away the bad luck, I don't know what will. (For me, anyway, most certainly not sake or shochu.)