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Jody Kurash • August 14, 2024

People are going nuts — coconuts, to be specific — for Kamala Harris.  Ever since President Biden passed the torch to Vice President Harris, the internet has exploded with coconut […]

Jody Kurash • March 13, 2024

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Jody Kurash • September 7, 2023

It’s a Georgetown landmark. You might know it as the place that serves brunch every day of the week… or for its display of sports memorabilia in the “dugout” room […]

Jody Kurash • July 6, 2023

Whether you love it or hate it, one thing seems certain — it’s hard to avoid. Season two of  “And just Like That” (AJLT), the sequel to the blockbuster “Sex […]

Jody Kurash • June 4, 2014

No matter where you go in Indonesia, you will see them. A small storefront with a counter, a vendor on the street. They are dispensing drinks of an odd consistency: most of them thick and gooey, like globs of brownish mud. These curious potables can be purchased at one of the incalculable number of jamu shops that fill this island nation.

Jamu is a traditional herbal medicine from Indonesia, dating to ancient times. While little known in the States, jamu is widely used by locals. Indigenous healers, or dukuns, were the original jamu practitioners, but now it is more widespread than CVS in D.C.

A mixture of plants, leaves, seeds, herbs, bark, spices, fruits and flowers, jamu is purported to cure everything. It can treat diabetes, lower cholesterol, eliminate body odor, improve sexual stamina, cool the body, cure arthritis and even provide harmony within your family. The list goes on and on. Depending on the ailment, a different combination is prescribed.

Commercially prepared jamu is widely available, but most prefer to have it freshly made at a shop, where they can get a custom blend. It comes in tablets, powders and teas, but is most commonly consumed as a drink. Sometimes it is served in a combination of these.

My first jamu experience came courtesy of my friend Henry Kunjuik, who runs three jamu shops in Denpasar, the busy capital of Bali. Over the course of my nine months in Indonesia, Henry has treated me for a leg infection, hangovers and cuts and scrapes.

Henry comes from Padang, a region of Sumatra famous for its spicy food. He has been practicing jamu in Bali for more than seven years. He and his older cousin learned to make jamu from a master jamu guru in Java. Henry works at one of his stores and has taught his younger brothers how to run the other two.

Located on a busy thoroughfare, his main store opens around 4 p.m. every day to provide a relief for tired souls coming home from work and looking for a pick-me-up. He stays open until 1 or 2 a.m. In the meantime, his shop becomes a gathering point for a truckload of friends he refers to as brothers.

The typical jamu order is a customized combo of a thick, freshly prepared natural smoothie with a shot of juice or tea and a tablet on the side. The most popular requests can be ordered from a menu, divided into jamu for men, jamu for women and jamu for both sexes. An average serving costs about 8,000-12,000 rupiah (72-94 cents), depending on the mixture and the type of egg used (duck or chicken).

Jamu Pegel Linu, which relieves muscle fatigue and helps one get a good night’s sleep, is the most frequently ordered item on the menu. Customers can expect to wake up the next morning rested and ready to go. “You work hard all day, then you’re so tired, “ says Henry. “Then you drink jamu before you sleep and when you wake up you much feel better.”

When I ask Henry for an analysis of the natural ingredients, he recites a list of Indonesian words. While some are familiar – like ginger, citrus and turmeric – most of the words can’t be deciphered by Google’s online translator. In Indonesia, words vary not only from English, but from one island to another.

Two of the ingredients common to most jamu drinks are egg and honey. It is generally believed in Indonesia that when mixed together they increase stamina. (If you want to make jamu at home, you will have to have most of the ingredients shipped to you, since they are native only to Indonesia. You can also order commercially made powders online.)

Henry mixes up a concoction to relieve my insomnia and teaches me to drink like a local. First, he whips up a thick sludge using a mixer mounted to the counter. I watch as he cracks an egg into a cup and throws in various powders, Beras Kencur –a locally produced juice infused with herbs – and a special honey only made and sold for jamu.

After a series of whirs and clanks, Henry pours a thick goop into a glass. He offers me a sample first. It’s bitter and medicinal, a bit like Jagermeister. He rims the glass with lime and squeezes the remaining juice into my glass, which adds a pleasant citrus flare.

My prescription is served on a plate, along with a sunny glass of Henry’s handcrafted ginger tea, a tablet of commercially made jamu and a piece of candy for dessert.

I am instructed to chug the jamu and chase it with the sugary tea. The smack of the sweet and spicy ginger provides a lovely contrast to the herbaceous jamu, washing down the slurry with a refreshing twist. I finish up by taking the tablet with the remaining tea and skip the candy.

Maybe it’s the power of suggestion, but I begin to feel invigorated almost immediately. When I go home that night, I ease into a soothing slumber.

Jody Kurash • February 13, 2014

Naming cocktails after current events is nothing new, especially in a wonky city like Washington. Whether it’s an election, scandal, debt ceiling, snowstorm or government shutdown, there is always a cocktail commemorating something in D.C.
Two of my favorites in recent years have been the “Binders Full of Women,” a Mitt Romney-themed election tipple from the Mt. Vernon Square bar and restaurant The Passenger, and BLT Steak’s “Gun to a Snowball Fight,” named after the 2009 incident in which a cop in plainclothes pulled a gun during a snowball fight on U Street.

What about naming a cocktail after an international court ruling? This occurred in Peru last month after the International Court of Justice gave Lima economic rights over a slice of Pacific Ocean maritime territory in a 100-year-old dispute with neighboring Chile.

The new elixir, called the La Haya Sour (The Hague Sour) after the Dutch city where the ICJ is based, is a variation on the Pisco Sour, Peru’s national drink. According to Agence France Presse, the cocktail was unveiled on the eve of the country’s Pisco Sour Day.

Peruvians are so crazy about pisco, they have not one, but two national holidays commemorating their flagship spirit: National Pisco Sour Day (the first Saturday in February) and National Pisco Day (the fourth Sunday in July). The official website of the Peruvian government has a link to a site called “Pisco es Perú.”

According to AFP, which interviewed the drink’s creator, bartender Javier Perez, the concoction’s intense blue comes from a dash of Curacao, to “give it the color of the sea.” Says Perez: “It’s a drink that pays tribute to The Hague ruling in favor of Peru and that puts an end to border problems with Chile.”

Naming a pisco drink after Peru’s court victory is a double smack in the face for Chile. Peru and Chile have been fighting for decades over who invented pisco (a grape brandy produced in winemaking regions of Peru and Chile). Both countries also claim the Pisco Sour as their national drink. While it may sound trivial, the debate can become fierce between these neighbors.
There is actually a town named Pisco in both countries, so each can lay international claim to an “appellation of origin,” a direct link between the product and the land. This is similar to France, where Champagne, Bordeaux and Burgundy can only be labeled as such if they’re produced in those specific regions.

The Peruvian city by that name dates back to 1574, while the Chilean town was given its moniker in 1936, when then Chilean president Gabriel González changed the name of La Unión to Pisco Elqui. Many believe the name was only changed in an attempt to steal the Pisco name from Peru.

In 2013, the European Commission ruled that Peru will be recognized as the original home of pisco. The decision established the Peruvian village of Pisco as the geographical origin of the drink and protects the country’s right to claim its provenance in the European market.

The rivalry between these two nations goes back to the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), which pitted Peru and Bolivia against Chile. During the conflict, Chile invaded Peru, occupying the capital, Lima, and delivered a crushing defeat to its Andean enemies. Peru, which lost the territories of Arica and Tacna, fared better than Bolivia, which lost its entire coastline to Chile. Tacna was returned to Peru in 1929.

Some Peruvians say that Chile stole the production of pisco during these years of disputed borders.

“Chile, they try to claim everything from Peru as their own,” says Lowell Haise Contreras, a musician from Villa María del Triunfo, a district of Lima that was on the front lines during the 1881 battle for the capital. “Pisco, ceviche, empanadas. . . . They don’t make anything of their own, so they try to take credit for the great creations of Peru.”

As for me, since I consider Peru my second home, I have to side with the land of Macchu Picchu.

La Haya Sour (The Hague Sour)
1 egg white
3 ounces Peruvian pisco (I prefer Macchu Pisco)
1 ounce lime juice
½ ounce simple syrup
½ ounce blue Curacao
Angostura bitters
In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine the first five ingredients. Shake vigorously for 15 seconds, then strain into a cocktail glass. Top with a few drops of bitters. Garnish with a lime.

Jody Kurash • January 15, 2014

As Washington – and much of the United
States – thaws out from one of the biggest
cold spells in recent memory, I
have been relishing my new tropical home on
the tranquil island of Bali. Enjoying an average
daily temperature of 85 degrees and a 10-minute
commute to the beach, just looking at the cold
weather on CNN sends shivers down my spine.
But if you can’t move to Polynesia, one of
the best ways to bring the beach to you is with a
tropical umbrella drink. While a hot toddy may
warm your soul, nothing quite says sunshine and
happiness like a tiki bar.

The original tiki bar was Don the
Beachcomber, created by Ernest Gantt in 1933
in Los Angeles. (Author Wayne Curtis tells the
story in “And a Bottle of Rum: A History of
the New World in Ten Cocktails”). Gantt, who
had spent much of his youth rambling about the
tropics, rented a small bar and decorated it with
items he’d gathered in the South Pacific, along
with driftwood, nets and parts of wrecked boats
scavenged from the beach.

Gantt stocked his bar with inexpensive rums,
available in abundance after Prohibition, and
invented an array of faux-tropical drinks using
fruit juices and exotic liqueurs. His bar became
incredibly fashionable, attracting celebrities and
prompting Gantt to legally rename himself Donn
Beach.

The other iconic tiki bar was Trader Vic’s,
founded in 1934 in Oakland, Calif., by Victor
Jules Bergeron, Jr. Originally called Hinky
Dinks, Bergeron’s small bar and restaurant
soon morphed into a Polynesian-themed spot
with tropical drinks. It was renamed Trader
Vic’s at the suggestion of Bergeron’s wife, who
thought it would fit because her husband was
always involved in some type of deal or trade.
According to Curtis, Bergeron admits he swiped
the tiki concept from Gantt.

Both bars expanded to multiple locations,
sparking a nationwide craze that spawned dozens
of imitators, all rushing to replicate each
other’s colorful tipples.

Gantt was a talented mixologist who crafted
complex drinks with lengthy ingredient lists,
including multiple rums, homemade syrups and
fresh fruit. But as more tiki-themed bars opened
and Trader Vic’s turned to franchising, the
intricate cocktails became watered-down and
simplified.

Perhaps the most duplicated tipple is the
quintessential tiki drink: the mai tai. Both Gantt
and Bergeron claimed to have invented it, but
their recipes vary wildly. The name is derived
from “Maita’i,” the Tahitian word for “good.”
Though it later fell out of fashion, the mai
tai was one of the most popular cocktails in the
1950s and ’60s. It featured prominently in Elvis
Presley’s chartbuster movie “Blue Hawaii.”
In their heyday, tiki bars were popular places
to celebrate a big occasion. Trader Vic’s at the
Washington Hilton was a hot spot for power
lunches. It was a favorite of Richard Nixon, who
had a fondness for mai tais.

According to Curtis, a mai tai was the first
thing requested by Patty Hearst, the Symbionese
Liberation Army kidnap-victim turned conspirator,
when she was released on bail in 1976.
Eventually the tiki bubble burst. With
scores of cheap imitators and poor locations,
the Polynesian fad began to lose its luster. None
of the original Don the Beachcombers are still
in existence and Trader Vic’s has only a few
remaining outposts. Perhaps the trend’s last
stand came in 1989, when the ever-brash Donald
Trump closed the venerable Trader Vic’s in New
York’s Plaza Hotel, calling it “tacky.”

Tiki crawled back into the spotlight over the
last decade and a half as retro-hipsters embraced
its kitschiness. Its comeback has continued with
the recent cocktail renaissance. Modern mixologists
have begun to uncover some of the original
tropical recipes with their multi-layered rum
profiles, fresh juices and handcrafted syrups.
The craft tiki cocktail movement arrived in
full force at the Georgetown waterfront in 2009
with mixologist Jon Arroyo’s extensive list of
authentic cocktails at Farmers Fishers Bakers.
Imbibers can sample homemade mai tais based
on the recipes of both Bergeron and Gantt.
Another option is Hogo, a Caribbean-themed
rum bar on 7th Street, NW, featuring highend
island cocktails. The man behind Hogo,
launched just over a year ago, is Tom Brown,
a partner in Washington’s craft cocktail palace
The Passenger.

So when the January frost is nipping at your
nose, remember the words that Donn Beach
would tell his customers: “If you can’t get to
paradise, I’ll bring it to you.”

Don the Beachcomber’s Mai Tai
1 1/2 oz. Myers’s Rum
1 oz. Cuban rum (use a medium-bodied rum such as
Appleton or Barbancourt)
3/4 oz. lime juice
1 oz. grapefruit juice
1/4 oz. falernum syrup
1/2 oz. Cointreau
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Dash of Pernod

Trader Vic’s Mai Tai
2 oz. aged Jamaican rum
.5 oz. orgeat syrup
.5 oz. orange curacao
.25 oz. rock candy syrup
Juice from one fresh lime

For both drinks: Shake everything with ice and
strain into a double old-fashioned glass full of
crushed ice. Garnish with pineapple spear, lime
shell and a sprig of fresh mint.

Jody Kurash • December 5, 2013

When one thinks of liquor and Japan, sake immediately comes to mind. With its history dating back to the 700s, complex serving etiquette and array of fancy drinking vessels, this fermented rice wine is synonymous with Japan.

But during my recent excursion to the Tokyo area, I discovered another beverage that is booming in popularity in the land of the rising sun. Sh?ch? is a distilled beverage, mostly forged from barley, sweet potatoes, wheat or rice.

It varies in alcohol content from 20 percent to 25 percent and sports a crisp dry taste comparable to vodka or arrack. Multiple-distilled sh?ch?, which is generally used in mixed drinks, may contain up to 35-percent alcohol. The main difference between sake and sh?ch? is that sake is brewed, whereas sh?ch? is distilled.

Sh?ch? originated in Kyushu, the most southwesterly island in Japan, where it has been drunk for centuries. In recent years, its popularity has surged. According to the Japan Times, sh?ch? had long been thought of as being “cheap and nasty.” But as premium brands emerged and it was discovered by a new generation, the last two decades have seen triple-digit growth in sales. Trendy bars specializing in sh?ch? began popping up all over Tokyo.

Once considered stodgy, sh?ch? has been embraced by younger drinkers. Kimiyoshi Utsugi, a Tokyo resident, says he drinks sh?ch? every day. “My father always drank sake, but I drink sh?ch?,” he said. “The younger generation believes it’s much better for you.” Kimiyoshi says there is less sugar in sh?ch? and it won’t make you fat.

The way sh?ch? is served depends on the quality. According to Kimiyoshi, if it’s of good quality, it’s drunk neat or on the rocks. Brands of lesser quality are mixed with fruit juice, tea, lemon or cola.

The most popular sh?ch? cocktail is ch?hai (pronounced Shoe-High), which is a mixture of sh?ch? and lemon juice topped off with club soda for a fizzy finish.

Douglas Ford, my fun-loving host during my holiday, introduced me to the ch?hai cocktail. After a traditional Japanese dinner, we stopped by Wesley’s, one of his preferred watering holes for a nightcap.

We were in Fujisawa, an industrial city a short distance from his home in Kamakura. While the city lies about 46 kilometers south of Tokyo’s city center, to me it felt like part of the L.A.-type sprawl of Japan’s capital city.

As we walked down a dark side street near the train station, we stopped at a narrow doorway that opened to a steep flight of enclosed stairs. Nothing from the street level indicated that anything at all was located in this dim building. But sure enough, once we ascended we arrived in a small cozy den of eclectic regulars. The walls in this dive bar were plastered with marker graffiti and a collection of posters and customer photos. It reminded me of CBGB’s meets Cheers.

The true highlight of Wesley’s is the owner Kagefumi Yoshimora. Yo-Chan, as he is known, is an adorable bespectacled man with cute fuzzy eyebrows and a matching mustache. He becomes an instant friend with all his patrons. Not to be missed are the special nights when Yo-Chan plays guitar with his jazz band.

Doug suggested that I try Yo-Chan’s special version of ch?hai. My drink, a bright yellow concoction, arrived in a handled beer mug. The flavor was bright, refreshing and effervescent. The pungent lemon shined while being softened by the fizzy soda. The sh?ch? added an invigorating bite.

After a 90-plus degree summer day, this tipple is a perfect way to quench your burning thirst. Be forewarned, Yo-chan’s ch?hai packs a punch. After a frustrating day plodding through airports, his cocktails went straight to my head on my first night in Japan. After asking for his recipe I discovered why his ch?hai is so lethal: there is an approximate 5-1 ratio of sh?ch? to mixers.
Ch?hai is not just popular in bars. It’s commonly found as a canned pre-mixed drink in supermarkets, convenience stores and even vending machines in train stations. Popular beverage companies like Kirin (beer) and Suntory (whiskey) produce their own ch?hai canned drinks.

While pre-mixed versions may be a convenient option, some of my fondest memories of Japan are huddling around the cramped bar at Wesley’s, cooling down with a glass of “high test lemonade” and listening to Yo-chan jam with his mates. Domo arigatou.

Ch?hai
150 ml Sh?ch?
30 ml Lemon Juice
Pour in a beer mug and top with club soda.