Ox Car

The “gissha”, or “goshoguruma”, was a Japanese Ox drawn carriage used to transport aristocracy originating in the Heian period (794-1185). Medieval travel was limited to walking for the peasant class, horses for the samurai, and various types of palanquin for others of greater means. In the modern day these nostalgic carriages of a bygone era can only be found shuttling tourists between the sights. The carts used by nobility back then were elaborate affairs, with fancy roofs and bamboo shutters. They were large, and required a small ladder to climb aboard, which would extend out from the rear when the cart was stationary.

 Japanese Karakuri Creation Group artist and senior member Fumio Tsuburai turned to this image in his newest work, Ox Car, for the group’s annual spring exhibition. This year’s theme of “Ancient Times” reminds us of how the past is never very far away and always seems to repeat itself. Tsuburai-san, who is seventy-five this year, imagined himself traveling the old countryside in his carriage, hoping “the plague would disappear during the Heian period”. A thousand years ago Japan saw a wave of over one hundred epidemic plagues during the course of those centuries of the Heian period. Small pox alone killed one third of Japan’s entire population during this time, and was just one of five maladies which have been recorded.

Tsuburai’s Ox Car would have been a lovely place to hide from the outside world in those days, made with exquisite detail and styling. There is extensive yosegi work throughout the main carriage body and roof which was made by the late master Yoshiyuki Ninomiya, handmade functioning spoked wheels, the requisite ladder to climb aboard and even a convenient stand for the poles to rest on while your oxen are out grazing. Tsuburai comments that there are some rules for making traditional Japanese crafts like this ox cart, but that he dared to use his own original methods. The work of art is quite beautiful and large, and of course presents a tricky hidden challenge for accessing the main compartment. Tsuburai is known within the Karakuri artisan group as “the IDEAMAN!” due to his background in “high tech” that he translates into clever secret opening mechanisms. His Ox Car is certainly one of his most beautiful ideas from over two decades of creating with the group.

Here’s a toast to the IDEAMAN with a wonderfully apropos cocktail. Paul MacDonald is the creative mind behind the bar at Philadelphia’s Friday Saturday Sunday, where he has earned his own reputation as an idea man. He learned the cocktail trade on the job, starting at a speakeasy style bar in his hometown of Bethlehem Pennsylvania. His inventive ingredients run the gamut from a well known smoked eggplant cocktail to his mathematically accurate “Fibonacci” cocktails which build upon the famous sequence.

In his “Idea Man” he uses a favorite ratio for his pure spirit cocktails, which he says is “essentially an augmented Hanky Panky spec”. The Hanky-Panky, as I’m sure you know, is the drink that Ada “Coley” Coleman, head bartender at the Savoy in London, famously served Sir Charles Hawtry sometime in the early nineteen twenties, which led him to exclaim, ‘By Jove! That is the real hanky-panky!’ Its equal parts gin and sweet vermouth are merely altered with a few dashes of Fernet Branca, which completely changes the drink. MacDonald uses Amaro Nepeta in his rum based cocktail, an unusual bitter made primarily from Nepitella, a mint varietal which grows in the southern Sicilian countryside. I’ve substituted the minty amaro Braulio here at MacDonald’s suggestion, which comes close if you can’t get around regional distribution issues for the Nepeta. When asked why this cocktail is named “Idea Man”, MacDonald replied, “I prefer to ask, “why not?” Here’s to the ideas, may they never run dry – cheers!

Idea Man by Paul MacDonald

1 ¼ oz El Dorado 12

1 ¼ oz Cocchi Torino

½ oz Amaro Nepeta

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a coupe glass. No garnish.

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