One of Japan’s originals, the Bamboo was created in the 1890s at the Grand Hotel In Yokohama, Japan by German bartender Louis Eppinger. The hotel was partly owned by a group of Americans in the military stationed in Japan at the time, and, in hopes of bringing a bit of their homeland to the island, they enlisted Eppinger as their man for the job. Having worked in San Francisco around the same time that Jerry Thomas assumed celebrity behind the bar, Eppinger became a fixture at the establishment for a decade and a half until his death, in 1907. According to David Wondrich, the Bamboo traveled quickly across the ocean and, by 1901, was a regular item on menus throughout America, finding enough fame that it was eventually sold in pre-mixed in bottles across the country. The Bamboo is currently enjoying a revival with renewed interest in the category of sherry cocktails. Joaquín Simó’s version adds a small dose of cane syrup to help balance the dryness of the drink and give it a bit more texture.
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