Hey y'all, I'm taking a break this month to focus on a few things: I've started a new job at Skurnik Wines as their Spirits Content & Education Coordinator, Pouring Ribbons is wrapping up its last month of service after ten years, and *drumroll* I've teamed up with my best friend, love of my life, and partner in slime, Kat King, to present a relatively relaxed night of cocktails and jazz this Sunday, March 6th.
Kat and I first met in 2015 while I was bartending at a cocktail bar in San Francisco where Kat’s band played from time to time. One thing led to another and look at us now – married, and still slinging drinks and singing songs!
Cocktails and jazz have played a fundamental role in our origin story and Haruki Murakami is tied up in all of it. We’ve both loved the author long before we loved each other. Murakami and his wife famously owned and operated a jazz cocktail bar, Peter Cat, in Tokyo before he turned to writing full-time. Also, sometimes Kat cooks spaghetti.
The book that we borrowed the title for this evening from is part science fiction, part fantasy; part cyberpunk detective noir, part surreal dream. Gangsters, unicorns, disembodied shadows, dual consciousness, and the power of a familiar tune weave their way through a tale of life, love, loss, and hope.
Much like the works of Murakami, we have woven bits of our own experiences and travels into this menu and set list. The flavors and ingredients incorporated into the cocktails on tonight’s menu are all inspired by or sourced from our travels. The tunes are full of nods to songs Murakami name drops in his works.
While we can’t time-travel with you back to the six-seater bar in Osaka where we befriended a Japanese couple, bonding over Pokemon Go and whiskey, or to our favorite haunt in Tokyo where the simplicity of good whiskey paired with local pear made our souls sing, we hope tonight can be a sort of time-travel all of its own.
The incredibly talented Rachel Gallea, who has designed all of Pouring Ribbons' menus since 2017's NYC 1983 menu, designed this menu, which I'll post here in the next 48 hours (or as soon as the dust settles). So until then, just imagine a really pretty menu with really drinks that read as though they'd be very delicious.
BTW the promo image is actually the cover of Kat's record, One Woman Band. Besides donning that badass rat mask for the photo, I also got to play on the record. Check it out for free here on Bandcamp or Spotify or whatever your preferred audio streaming service is!
Okay, time to go set up the bar!