Set your sake on chopsticks above your beer, pound the bar, chug your drink and join the Lawrence sake-bomber ranks.
Photos by Joshua Kendall
SAKE BOMBED
A boilermaker with a Japanese flair
By Meredith Desmond, Jayplaywriter
Maybe I'm lame, but I've never been a big fan of chugging beer. You will not see me shotgunning Keystone Lights in my garage like a crazed frat boy anytime soon. But if there's sake involved, I could change my mind. Sake makes beer go down much easier.
By day, Kokoro is a classy Japanese restaurant, the kind of place you'd want your parents to take you when they're in town. By closing time, the place transforms into a mess of beer mugs, shot glasses and chopsticks scattered on the bar, tables and floor. Nightfall brings out sake bombers in full force.
One Saturday night, three of my girlfriends and I decide to expand our global drinking horizons and give sake bombing atry. We get to Kokoro about 10, not knowing what to expect. As we walk in, sake-bombing veterans stare at us from Polaroids on the wall. Two special photos, set apart from the rest, proudly display the male and female record-holders for sake bombing at Kokoro: he drank 20; she drank 17. About 15 people are lined up in front of the bar, and they all look like they know what they're doing. We're new at this, and
we're scared.
Luckily, Joe Martinson and Brett Dietz, two birthday boys out with a group celebrating, take us under their wing and teach us the sake-bombing rules. They are as follows: set up the sake on chopsticks on top of a beer mug, slam on the bar to knock the shot glass into the mug and chug.
Bartender Royce Heitsch serves everyone a glass beer mug, a ceramic shot glass and a pair of chopsticks. He uses a pitcher of Bud Light to fill up the mugs halfway, then fills up the shot glasses from a pitcher of sake. Martinson and Dietz show us how to set up the two chopsticks on top of the mugs — they have to be spaced close enough for the shot glass to rest on top of them easily, but far enough apart to allow the glass to drop into the beer. There is a science to this, and Heitsch says once a guy likened it to playing a game of drunken Jenga. After everyone's set up, we're ready to bomb.
Two guys at the other end of the bar start yelling at everyone to do spirit fingers in preparation for the chug. OK, now jazz hands, they tell us. We all comply, then Heitsch yells from behind the bar, "Sake, sake, sake BOMB." There's a collective slamming of fists on the bar, shot glasses fall into beer mugs, then there's complete silence as everyone chugs. This is the routine that will continue all night: slam, splash, silence.
The sake-beer combo is not hard to swallow, and the drink goes down smoothly. Sake bombs don't have a welldefined taste, but after Martinson's fifth bomb, he shares a little bit of insight with me.
"Ittastes like candy corn to me, for some reason," he says.
As the great Willy Wonka said in *Willy Wonka* and the *Chocolate Factory*: "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker." It's true — Heitsch says each sake bake is made of
6sixounces of beer and one shot of sake, which in itself is 15 percent alcohol. That plus chugging in rapid succession is a dangerous combination that all but guarantees a quick trip to Blitzville. After three of these, I am giggling.
Heitsch says Kokoro has been serving sake bombs since the day it opened, almost five years ago. What he doesn't know is where sake bombing came from. In fact, the history of sake bombing is a mystery, but sake experts say it is an American invention.
a traditional drink with a long history and strict, precise brewing process. Many of the cheap American versions of sake are not traditionally brewed and have alcohol added to speed up the process, sacrificing taste. Americans don't care because they're mixing it with beer. Even so, Gauntner does give credit to a growing group of American sake drinkers who
Sake bombing in Lawrence
Where to go
Rochester, ten km ormbury on Thursday. Friday and Saturday night after 10 p.m.; $2.75 before 10 or any other day of the week
Kokoro, 601 Kasold Drive
If you've got a group or it's the weekend, bartender Royce Heytle recommends reserving a table. That way, you're guaranteed great service.
The Moon Bar, 821 S. Iowa St.
Price: $4 per bomb,$ 3 on Fridays
John Gauntner, a sake expert who lives in Japan and is known around the world as "The Sake Guy," says "Americans are indeed creative," because sake is not used for mixed drinks in Japan at all. It's actually
We, 740 Massachusetts St.
Price: $5-$ 6 each, depending on which
beer and sake you choose.
You can get a sake bomb at We, but it's only occasionally that the restaurant has groups come in just to drink them. Give them a call first or just have one with dinner.
appreciate the drink as a premium beverage.
There's definitely an appreciation for sake amongst sake bombers, even if it's an Americanized one. There's something about the atmosphere and enthusiasm for sake bombing that brings a bunch of random people together to have a great time pounding bartops and chugging drinks.
A few sake bombs after we arrive at Kokoro, the spirit-fingers guys start freestyle rapping in the middle of the bar. "See
what sake makes white people do?" Martinson says.
Maybe we are deviating from Japanese sake traditions a bit. But at the very least, we can start making our own.
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