Having finished off the last bubble of the Moët & Chandon, dé Dale ordered a glass of rum and invited me to try it.
I declined, saying, “I’ve never been a big rum drinker.”
“This is no ordinary rum, my friend,” dé Dale said. “This is Ron Zacapa Centenario. From Guatemala.”
“Guatemala? Huh.”
I had never heard of Zacapa, nor had I known that rum was produced in that small Central American country. I was willing to trust dé Dale’s judgment all the same; he hadn’t been wrong about much yet.
The liquor was much darker than other rums, and had a surprisingly pleasant nose. Giving the rum a tentative sip, I was overwhelmed by its rich, full-bodied flavor as the liquor washed over my tongue.
My eyes must have lit up like a pachinkomachine because dé Dale turned to Shōhei and said, “Now that my friend here has slobbered all over my glass, how about a fresh one for myself.”
Shōhei laughed and took another glass off of the glass shelf. Placing a tumbler of stylishly etched crystal on the counter, he switched on a light that illuminated the glass from underneath.
“Bacarat,” dé Dale informed. “They know how to do things right here.”
Shōhei then pulled out a block of ice from behind the counter and started chipping away at it with an ice pick. He rotated the ice in his left hand, chipped at the rough edges, flipped it around and gave it a few dexterous jabs with the pick, until it was a perfect sphere of ice, which he set into the tumbler.
Shōhei then took the bottle of Zacapa Centenario which was covered in petate, a hand-woven mat made from palm leaves, uncorked the bottle and poured a generous amount into the glass. With a flourish, he gave the ice a spin and slid the drink over to dé Dale.
Dé Dale and I clinked our glasses and savored the moment.
“Are you a rum drinker now?” dé Dale asked after a while.
“I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to drink anything else,” I replied. “The scales have fallen from my eyes.”
“Better late than never.”
The first posting/chapter in this series can be found here.
Rokuban: Too Close to the Sun and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.