It's a Tuesday night, and I've been trapped in a Radio Shack for an hour and a half, held hostage by the store's crappy Wi-Fi and its inability to transfer my old phone's data to my new phone within a timely fashion, say, before I die of starvation and dehydration at a Sprint counter, listening to the sales rep tell me about the troubles he'd been having with his pet cat, Tigga, before he got the poor animal neutered.
Spraying his furniture. Attacking his kid sister. These were the things I'd likely have done to the Sprint employee had I not bailed on Radio Shack and headed to Ninja Ramen instead. Dark and unassuming from its bar-front overlooking Washington, you'd never realize it's actually a great little spot that boasts an impressive array of Japanese whisky, a tonkotsu broth that gets 'er done, and a cocktail list that's as absurd as it is tasty. Drinks are named in reference to pop culture ninjas, from Mortal Kombat to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Anime plays on the television. A John Candy-size teddy bear sits near the door for no apparent reason. Such lunacy is often the sign of genius, or at least a sick sense of humor, and that's exactly what I'm here for, to escape adulthood for one fleeting moment.
Enter the Oroku Sake, a cocktail named after Oroku "The Shredder"
Funny, then, that this drink is so elegant and feminine. I sip mine, taking in the soft edges of Creme Yvette's violet flavor and the effervescent effectiveness of it all, a steady stream of punk rock blasting in the background. And as all punks past and present know, it's time to put down the drink when that one Social Distortion song comes on. I pull out my credit card, the one with the kitten on it, the one that prompted the employee at Radio Shack to tell me, "When I brought him home from the vet, Tigga was so sad, like, about losing his manhood or whatever."
The best part about this drink is the two large blackberries you can pop in your mouth at the end, enjoying all the booze that they've soaked up before you crush them into oblivion. Let me tell you, feminism has never tasted so good.
2 oz. Kissui Japanese Vodka
1/2 oz. Creme Yvette
1/2 oz. lemon juice
3 blackberries
sparkling sake
Muddle blackberries with lemon juice in a shaker tin. Add Creme Yvette and vodka and shake vigorously on ice. Double strain into a cocktail glass and top with sparkling sake. Garnish with a blackberry.
Update 2/9, 2:14 p.m.: Ninja Ramen's Christopher Huang tells the Press that the ramen broth isn't truly tonkotsu style, but an "Asahikawa-style shio broth, part seaweed & fish, part pork, salted by shio, or salt, as opposed to shoyu or miso." He also this bit of deep TMNT knowledge: "The shredder's name is Oroku Saki, which is a female name (saki means blossom, so I chose to use the floral creme Yvette). The creators of TMNT were white guys that didn't know that, so they accidentally gave him a girl's name. Huang named "the cocktail Oroku sake because it uses sake and I like puns."
