Devil’s Cut, the Madrid location of the most awarded Japanese barman on the planet | Gastronomy: recipes, restaurants and drinks

Adonis is part of the golden age of cocktails. A drink that already worked at the end of the 19th century in New York hotels thanks to its successful mix, which consisted of using red vermouth to provide a little sweetness and sherry to play with the drier nuances. Some narrow features ended up giving the result great complexity. Today it is a cocktail that remains innovative and tremendously modern, in its delicate minimalism.

At Devil’s Cut (Calle del León, 3, Madrid) they have evolved it and offer a slightly floral version: the recipe alternates Fino and Amontillado – two Williams & Humbert sherries that give depth – with Martini Rubino and Mancino Rosso, which balance the bitterness and sweetness of the whole. Clarified passion fruit is added to that base, which introduces acidity and brightness; St-Germain, elderflower liqueur, which adds a floral nuance; and Muyú Vetiver, created by Alex Kratena, with earthy and exotic notes. The result is an elegant cocktail, with complex aromatic layers, which respects the essence of the original Adonis, updating it with enormous sensitivity.

“Sherry is part of my history,” explains the bartender The Japanese Shingo Gokan, creator of this Madrid cocktail bar, the first he founded in Europe with his name and which is currently celebrating one year of existence, with the pride of having recently received the Tales of the Cocktail award as the best international bar in the world. “I worked in a sherry bar in Ginza, Tokyo, more than twenty years ago. Then I traveled to Spain, visited their cellars and learned everything I could about sherry. It has been my favorite drink ever since.”

Gokan was born in Tokyo’s bustling Shibuya district and began working behind the bar at just 18 without a mentor to teach him any skills. “I went to bars and restaurants, I tried, I analyzed. And I read the Book of Savoyard cocktails again and again; It was my first Bible.”

At 23 he landed in New York without a job. He asked what the best bar was and the answer came back: Angel’s Share. “I went, I left my CV and they rejected me. Months later they called me. That’s how it all started”, he says of a place that is the history of good drinking in the Big Apple. Angel’s Share, opened in 1993, is considered the origin of the speakeasy modern, and when the original team left to open their own stores, Gokan took over management. “I was left in charge with no days off and working fifteen hours a day. I had to form a new team from scratch. It was the most difficult phase of my career,” he recalls of an effort that showed him his limits. “Angel’s Share had very strict rules: no standing room, no more than four people per group. It was difficult to manage. I promised myself that if I ever had my own bar, I would maintain the quality, but with more freedom.”

With a clear idea in mind, in 2014, he launched Speak Low in a four-story building in Shanghai. Each level allowed you to have a different experience: an open and lively bar, a more technical and quiet one and a space reserved for regular customers. “It was a way to solve the problems I had experienced in New York. Each establishment catered to a type of customer and service.”

His famous Speak Low cocktail – with which he won the Bacardi Legacy Competition – mixed rum, sherry and matcha tea, uniting East and West in a recipe that evoked his childhood memories. “I was inspired by the Japanese tea ceremony. I had studied that traditional art, where matcha is prepared and the guest is welcomed with calm and respect”, he comments over a drink in which he conveyed that spirit of hospitality. The cocktail bar made the list of the world’s 50 best bars in its first year and was the first bar in China to do so. On Asia’s 50 Best Bars it reached number two. “This gave us visibility and changed the Asian landscape. It was a before and after,” he says.

Since then, he has founded new spaces – The SG Club, Sober Company, Swirl, El Lequio, Ash, The SG Tavern, many of them recognized in the best rankings in the world – and has managed to ensure that his group is present in six countries with around twenty bars. As well as brands of drinks, glassware and barware. “Sharing recipes or techniques is easy; the difficult thing is sharing culture. We work with teams of different generations and nationalities. The important thing is to always explain the reason for each gesture”, he underlines. To maintain consistency across all its locations, Gokan has implemented an internal code called 5S, a sort of group constitution: “It’s a set of principles: respect, gratitude, conscious hospitality. If something you do is in line with that, you’re doing well. It’s what maintains our identity.”

The Madrid adventure

Devil’s Cut was born with the same spirit, but with a Madrid twist. “I’ve always wanted to open something in Spain, to close the loop on sherry,” he explains. The name has a double reading. In the whiskey industry, the part of the angel It is the part that evaporates during maturation; While devil’s cut It is the name popularly taken from what is trapped inside the barrel. And then there’s the match with the first place he worked. “There’s a lot of symbolism. Madrid even has the sculpture of the fallen angel. It all fits together.”

The letter is divided into three blocks that outline his professional biography. The first, Angel’s Share, brings together five cocktails he created fifteen years ago in New York. “A good recipe is always good. That’s why classic cocktails never go out of fashion,” he says. The second, SG Group, includes drinks from its Asian scene: «There are the most modern techniques, cocktails that represent what we are now». The third, Devil, focuses on Spain: “We use sherry in all drinks and local ingredients such as Iberian ham, Manchego cheese or quince. It’s my way of integrating Spanish culture into my story.”

And then there is the choice of the city, which might seem alien to his international wandering in the liquid universe: “Madrid has energy, but it is not an easy market. The cocktail culture here is growing, it is not yet as big as in New York or Asia. Nonetheless, there are many new bars, national awards – such as Top Cocktail Bars, which a month ago awarded it two stars in one fell swoop – and an increasingly curious public. I think the future is promising.”