How an 1860 Japanese diplomatic mission to New York inspired this bar in Tokyo

Experience the cocktails of Tokyo’s SG Club with head mixologist Oma's pop-up in Bengaluru

The Meiji period of Japanese history is one of modernisation, revolution and reform. A lot changed in the mid to late 1800s, and this includes changes in the culinary and social culture. SG Club, a bar in Tokyo, reimagines a bar of that era into modern day. Located in the iconic Shibuya district, it was started by Shingo Gokan in June 2018. The award-winning bar ranks as number 23 on the Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2024 list.

Bengaluru is in for a treat as the head mixologist Reoma ‘Oma’ Mita comes to the city for a pop-up at Muro on Museum Road. In a fun conversation, he takes us through the history of cocktails in Japan, the bar’s origin story, and his plans while in India. 

“Today, Tokyo’s bar culture is quite diverse, allowing you to choose a bar based on your mood and preferences. There are izakayas, music bars, casual bars and many other types of bars,” says Oma, who started his career at a factory making concrete pillars. He read Shingo Gokan’s profile in a magazine and decided to be a bartender. “I travelled to New York for the first time to meet Shingo, who was working at Angel’s Share at the time. I started working as one of the founding members of the SG club when it opened in 2018, and after about five years, I finally became a bar manager.”

The last samurai

The history of cocktails in Japan stretches back to the Meiji era. In the 1860s, a Japanese diplomatic mission, made up of 77 samurai, set sail on the Kanrin Maru ship to San Francisco. When the group reached New York City they stopped by Broadway and visited legendary bartender Jerry Thomas’ bar. These samurai were welcomed warmly by the Americans and Thomas made a special cocktail in their honour. 

By this time Japan was opening up to western relations and ending its isolationist foreign policy. These samurai, who were diplomatic ambassadors, were the last few as just a decade or so later, the samurai status was abolished in the 1870s. When they returned from Europe, they brought with them a lot of new ideas and cultures. SG Club imagines the kind of American bar that these well-travelled samurai would have opened when they returned to the country. 

“Cocktails were introduced to Japan during the Meiji period, but it wasn’t until the Taisho period (1912-1926), that bars began to appear in the city, and that the general public actually started to drink them. Until then, cocktails were a special drink only enjoyed in places where a limited number of people gathered, such as hotels in port towns like Rokumeikan and Yokohama, where ships on overseas routes came and went,” Oma explains.