The 'scientist' behind this bar in Tokyo is mixing world-class cocktails

The jigger in his hand is his test tube, the cocktail shaker on the bar his beaker. He carefully measures spirits and juices and bitters and shakes or stirs them together, pouring them into glasses high and low, revealing works of alchemical magic.

Because, Manabu Ohtake is also an artist. He treats cocktails the way chefs treat meals, although this is Japan so he treats them the way Japanese chefs treat meals, which is to say with absolute dedication and incredible skill. His drinks are not works of art in the flashy way of smokes and wild garnishes, but in the way anything that is created with unflinching skill for someone's enjoyment can be a work of art.

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His laboratory and studio is the Royal Bar, in the foyer of the Palace Hotel Tokyo, a five-star establishment near the imperial structure from which it takes its name. The Royal Bar is an institution, having opened in 1961 and been at the forefront of the cocktail revolution in Japan thanks to its original bartender Kiyoshi Imai, known to all as "Mr Martini".

Ohtake-san is only the seventh chief bartender in the Royal Bar's 60-year history - once you reach this position, you tend not to leave. And the drinks he's making me tonight, the whisky sour, the negroni, the apple penicillin, will spoil these cocktails for me forever.

See, there are no other cocktails like these. Yes, they're classic recipes with only a few ingredients, but you could say that about sushi, too. With skill these things can be elevated to astounding levels.

And so with every sip of every alcoholic drink for the rest of my life I'll now think, hmm, not as good as Royal Bar. Not as good as Ohtake-san's art and science.