Japanese Beer, Highball and Sour: Reading the Izakaya Drink Menu

The words that start the evening

Drinks are ordered first in Japan, before food, and the first round is expected to arrive fast so that everyone can raise a glass together. That is why so many tables open with the same line: toriaezu nama (とりあえず生). Toriaezu means for now, and nama (生), literally raw or fresh, is short for nama bīru, draft beer. It says: beer first, we will think about the rest later.

Beer is no longer the only opener. Highballs and lemon sours are just as common, and nobody minds if you start with tea. What matters is that everyone has something in hand for the kanpai (乾杯), the toast.

Beer: nama, jokki and bin

Draft beer comes in a handled mug called a jokki (ジョッキ). The default size is chū jokki (中ジョッキ), a medium mug, often shortened to chūnama (中生). Dai (大) is large, and a gurasu (グラス) is a small glass for people who want only a little. Bottled beer is bin bīru (瓶ビール). A bottle arrives with small glasses and is meant to be shared: you pour for the people around you, and they pour for you.

Highball, sour and chūhai

These are the long drinks that fill most of the page. A haibōru in Japan means whisky and soda unless the menu says otherwise. A sawā is shōchū, a clear distilled spirit, topped with soda and flavoured with fruit; remon sawā is the standard. Chūhai (酎ハイ) blends the words shōchū and highball, and in practice a chūhai and a sour are close relatives, with the name depending on the shop.

Ūronhai (ウーロンハイ) is shōchū with oolong tea: brown, flat and not sweet, popular with people who want something light with food. If a drink tastes too strong or too weak, two words adjust the next one.

Umeshu and the ways to take it

Umeshu (梅酒) is a sweet liqueur made by steeping ume, Japanese plums, in alcohol and sugar. Order it and the staff will ask how you want it, because the same drink comes several ways. The suffix wari (割り) means cut with, diluted with.

The same words work for shōchū and whisky. Mizuwari is a classic way to take whisky in Japan, and oyuwari is a winter habit with shōchū.

The exchange: from sitting down to kanpai

Staff come for the drinks order almost as soon as you sit. Give the drink, the number, and onegai shimasu.

Otōshi (お通し) needs a word of explanation. It is a small dish that arrives with the first drink without being ordered, and at most izakaya it is charged to each person as a kind of table charge. It is normal practice, not a trick.

For the toast, wait until every glass has arrived, lift yours, say kanpai and touch glasses lightly. Drinking before the toast is the one real mistake at this stage.

Another round, and the last one

Okawari (おかわり) means another serving of the same thing, so a raised empty glass and okawari onegai shimasu is a complete order. On a nomihōdai (飲み放題) plan, unlimited drinks for a fixed time, shops usually bring the next drink only when your glass is empty and announce last orders near the end.

Soft drinks, and saying you do not drink

Not drinking alcohol is easy in Japan as long as you say so early and order something. Menus have a sofuto dorinku (ソフトドリンク) section, and oolong tea, ūroncha (ウーロン茶), is the default choice: it looks at home on the table and goes with the food. Non'arukōru (ノンアルコール), often shortened to non'aru, covers alcohol-free beer and cocktails.

Nomenai n desu, I can't drink, is the gentle formula: it states a fact and invites no argument. Nomimasen, I don't drink, is also correct but sounds more like a principle. Driving is accepted as a reason everywhere, because the rules on drinking and driving are strict. The legal drinking age in Japan is twenty.