There’s a soft open, and there’s a whisper-soft open. The latter is the approach taken by The Aladdin Sane, the Japanese cocktail bar on the sublevel of downtown Detroit’s Book Tower that pays homage to David Bowie. Named after Bowie’s spectacular follow-up to his first major record success, The Aladdin Sane opened without a single bit of fanfare in January, then quietly perfected its service and menu over the next several months. Now, it’s ready to shine in the spotlight and show off its confident, eclectic vibes.
The Aladdin Sane’s intimate, cozy space “feels like a room to drink whiskey in,” says Patrick Jobst, beverage director at Method Co. and the Book Tower. It seats 31 guests in a room centered on a low, leather-lined bar. The atmosphere is ’70s chic with a strong Japanese flair, with custom wallpaper created by Detroit artist Reverend Michael Allan and Method Co. Creative Director Daniel Olsovsky. Stokes Architecture and Design oversaw the design in collaboration with Method Co., the team behind the Book Tower’s other projects.
The horseshoe bar is unusually low in height and surrounded on three sides by fabric chairs that swivel. The bar is staged like a proscenium, with the bartenders performing their cocktail ballet in the spotlight for the delight of front-row guests who can watch their every move. Flanking the sides of the room are a series of plush, olive-colored velvet benches with tables, designed to seat large parties.
At The Aladdin Sane, drinks are divided into two main categories: cocktails and whiskey. Classic cocktails like the old-fashioned and the margarita get the Starman treatment (fancy and bedazzled). The Sake & Strange Divine is a fresh riff on a new classic, the sake martini. Gin infused with sushi rice adds a divinely silky texture that plays against the sharp botanical notes of the sake and gin. The drink, served chilled with a large ice cube, is meant to be savored slowly and is paired with a generous dollop of caviar wrapped in a shiso leaf.
“There’s a long and storied cocktail tradition in Japan,” Jobst says. The bar program he designed with Jeremy Oertel, creative beverage director at Method Co., is “really aimed at taking that tradition and building upon it and progressing it, rather than just staying super classic and traditional.” The Aladdin Sane cocktails, he says, “fulfill the character of whatever track we’re associating from the [Bowie] album.”
More clever twists on classics include the Show Me You’re Real, a modified old-fashioned with Toki whiskey, Cognac, miso, and pecan and orange bitters. There’s also the popular spicy margarita, which adds to the traditional tequila and citrus a dash of vanilla and yuzu kosho, a common Japanese condiment that blends spiciness and umami.
The whiskey menu at The Aladdin Sane is vast and centered on Japanese and Scottish selections. Oloroso sherry-aged Highland Scotches like Dalwhinnie Distillers Edition join peat bombs like Lagavulin. The familiar but still tough-to-find Japanese whiskies like Yamazaki and Hibiki Japanese Harmony are also on offer. For a real indulgence, you can
ask for unicorn whiskies like the Hakushu 18-year 100th Anniversary and Glendronach 21-year Parliament. Then there’s the Glenfiddich Grand Yozakura 29-year whisky, a single-malt Scotch aged in American-oak casks and finished in awamori casks. Like the bar where it’s found, the drink is the perfect combination of daring and delicate, Scottish and Japanese, Detroit meets Bowie writ large.
This story originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on Nov. 6.
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