Drink of the Week: Kurosawa at Mesa

Taylor Hamby/OC Weekly

Kurosawa

Mesa is a purveyor of style, innovation and culture in this fair county, often compared to a LA lounge (even the unisex restrooms are hip) except without that whole LA douchebag hipster factor. It's a great venue for events, such as our upcoming Nov. 10 Happy Hour event presented by KCRW 89.9's Good Food host Evan Klieman and the Weekly. It's at 7 p.m. and free to get in, so make sure to go, especially given we're going to celebrate Mesa for what it doesn't get enough attention for: it's great food and expert drinks, both of which will be on display via specials for the night.

One drink you should definitely get that night is the Kurosawa cocktail, which reads like a headache in a stylish glass: sake, coconut rum, pineapple juice, agave and a jalapeno and mint muddle. Sake and Malibu seem like two bottles that should be kept on opposite ends of your liquor cabinet, but the Kurosawa is anything but a headache when it arrives-- smooth, exotic, sweet. It's topped with a few dashes of chili powder that teams up with the jalapeno muddle perfectly for a great kick.

Dangerously (or wonderfully?), the kick of alcohol is nowhere to be found. Two of these back-to-back went down as easy as juice, and had about the same effect. It's a damn tasty drink that in less capable hands would have failed miserably. But for $11 a pop there should be a little more substance to a sake cocktail--ask for yours extra boozy, por favor!