"Japanese barteder and cocktail-shaking philosopher" Kazuo Uyeda is coming down from the isolated monastery where he toils to perfect a "controversial method of shaking drinks": the "Hard Shake," the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique of booze.

The New York Times' Diner's Journal explains that, through an interpreter, the sensai will teach the art of the Hard Shake to audiences of no more than 110, for $675 a pop, this May. Here is a video of the master, engaged in his elaborate, dangerous art.

You might think, That's just some Japanese guy, shaking a tumbler. And you might be wrong. (emphasis: "might") Uyeda expounds on his jujitsu magic in a treatise for his Cocktail Academy:

Let's suppose that the elements of liquor are in the shape of a square. In general, most would envision shaking as method of trimming and rounding the four-corners of it. However, I envision the process as the "square shaped" liquor swelling in a circular fashion, through mixing it with the bubbles. The bubbles would act as a cushion preventing one's tongue from direct contact with the harshness of the ingredients and liquor, leading to a smoother taste. As each of the liquor's elements comes together, the result is an added taste as well as fine-grained bubbles.

[...] I have come up with a complex three step shaking method that involves snapping of the wrists, and twisting the shaker while holding it in a slanted position. I have created the "Hard Shake" prototype from this.

Uyeda says his method harnesses "The Way" or do—as in, the do portion of aikido and judo. (And you thought I was being racist with those martial arts jokes.) "The art of the cocktail," he explains, requires "reading tongue," "building concentration," and "a momentary form of art that required full use of all six senses and pleasure." He sounds like Yoda:

Asking by myself, how create more delicious taste, how satisfy with customer, how get near and make in harmony with my mind, etc. Answer does not coming if you do not ask something. Please listen the word of cocktail.

This guy is either the master savant of alcoholism, or yanking our chain like nobody's business. Domo arigato, Cocktail Samurai. America awaits your guidance. [NYT] [CocktailAcademy]