BELFAST—Wind Tracy, co-owner and bartender for Satori, a Sushi restaurant and cocktail bar in Belfast, has put a Japanese spin on the holiday cocktail for the season—with a wry name perfect for “these pandemic times.”

The Holiday Stimulus is a Japanese whisky-based cocktail that perfectly packs substantial sweet and sour flavors in a coupe glass.

“We first made this cocktail last year for the holiday season; we were still shut down because of the COVID-19 virus, and the stimulus checks were all starting to run out for the year,” he said. “We wanted to do something that played on that. Like a stimulus check, this cocktail hopefully brightened your year.”

Instead of the heavy cream or eggnog-based holiday drinks, he chose to build a cocktail “that’s a little more sophisticated with a sweet-bitter element to it,” he said. “The last couple of holidays have been bittersweet because of the pandemic. We can’t necessarily be with the family that we love. We can’t necessarily do the traditions we’re used to, but it’s still the holidays and we want to celebrate a little bit.”

Tracy, well known in the Midcoast for his craft cocktails over the last decade, as written about by Jenna Lookner for PenBay Pilot, has said, “It’s all about the balance of flavors and combining the Japanese and American schools of thought.” 

“I really love Japanese whisky in general,” he said. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s fairly new to the worldwide scene. They’ve only been part of the distilling practice for about 100 years as opposed to the rest of the world, which has been distilling for more than 1,000 years.”

Tracy shows us how to make this cocktail made from Suntory Toki whisky, described on its website as “a silky whisky with a subtle sweet-and-spicy finish,” which he compares to sake in that “it deals with very light, but complex flavors.”

Watch the video to see how the cocktail is made. You’ll need:

• 2 oz. Suntory Toki whisky (found at most Hannaford Supermarkets)
• 1 oz. Cynar, an Italian bitter liqueur (found at specialty liquor stores)
• ½ oz. spiced pomegranate syrup
• Two dashes of Angostura bitters
• Two dashes of Regan’s orange bitters no. 6

First, fill both a pint glass and a coupe glass with ice. Add ingredients above to the pint glass and stir. To prep the syrup, take 100 -percent pomegranate juice, a half cup of juicy red wine (he used a Corbières), mulling spices, fresh ginger, sliced oranges and a quarter cup of sugar and boil on the stove until it reduces to half; chill and strain. Strain cocktail into the chilled coupe glass and garnish with star anise, pomegranate seeds, and an orange slice.

This is one of those cocktails that shapeshifts as you sip it. This is one you take slooooowwww. From the start, you’ll pick up the sweet from the pomegranate syrup, the spice from the star anise, and the sour from the bitters, but the more the star anise, pomegranate seeds, and orange slice garnish marinate in the glass, the bigger the flavor gets, with deeper flavors of orange from the Regan’s orange bitters seeping through.

“I really believe that a cocktail should change throughout the tasting or at least make you conscious of the flavors that you’re tasting,” he said.

Make the cocktail yourself for your next holiday party, or have it made for you by Tracy at Satori.

Happy bittersweet holidays!

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com