For a relaxing time... make it Suntory time.

A brief word on cocktails here: if you think the fancy cocktail trend is out of hand in NY, you should see the circus that goes on here when you order a drink: the other night, at a hotel bar, I ordered a nice Japanese single malt on the rocks. Pretty simple, right? Whiskey and ice. It took about 15 minutes for the bartender to prepare.

First, he selected the proper glass for the particular whiskey he had in mind: a surprisingly tall, slender glass. Then he sorted through a bin of about 50 beautiful, unique, hand carved ice cubes and selected two and put them in the glass. Then he removed them from the glass: they weren't "right." He selected two more, removed one, and then replaced it with another that (I guess?) fit better. He then filled the glass with water. So this wasn't even going to be my whiskey: this whole ritual was simply for the water to accompany my whiskey.

For the whiskey itself he chose another, more suitable (low, heavy), glass and produced, from a separate freezer, a single, perfeclty spherical, ball of ice. He inspected it for any blemishes (I swear to god I'm not making this up), and polished off a fleck or two of ice granuals that clung rudely to the sphere. Next, he nestled it into the glass, not without a touch of love. Then he filled it with water, swished the water around the glass with a spoon to chill the glass and "soften" the ice and poured the water out, retaining the ice.
Finally, he produced the whiskey that he had chosen for me: a bottle from a cask that the Suntory distillery had produced exlusively for this bar, which had its logo on the label. He removed the cork and, by sight, poured out a perfect ounce and a half. He presented it with a bow.

Here's the thing about all this though: if some bartender did this for you at one of the fancy cocktail places in NY (which I'm admittedly a fan of) you'd want to, I don't know, make a noose out of the goddamn hipster's waistcoat and hang yourself with it. Not so here: it's a matter of pride without pretention. They are making a drink for you (and, heck, the same goes for the food), and for it not to be perfect is an insult to their craft.