It’s Melbourne in the ’80s, when the busy neon nightlife met a cocktail of the same bright and unapologetic style. It was the city’s answer to the shiny Cosmopolitan from Manhattan and the spirited Bramble from London. The Japanese Slipper was a zippy new green drink primed to join an era of shamelessly vibrant cocktails.
Invented behind the bar of one of Melbourne’s most iconic restaurants of the era, Mietta’s, it was the young French bartender Jean-Paul Bourguignon who first shook up this fluorescent drink. Made at a time when mixologists were moving away from conventional (and sometimes myopic) combinations and trying more boundary-pushing blends, this was a perfect moment for Jean-Paul to be handed a sample bottle of Midori.
Trained in Paris, it’s understandable that when Jean-Paul experimented with the relatively new melon-flavoured Midori he instinctively reached for something familiar and French – Cointreau. Balancing the overall sweetness (these are two fruity liqueurs, after all) with fresh lemon juice transformed the drink into a spirited figure of the new cocktail age.
Learning English at the time by reading, Jean-Paul discovered the word ‘slippers’ in a book about a Japanese woman (and her slippers). Deciding to make it a permanent part of his vocabulary, he named the cocktail after it, splashing it across menus as he travelled Australia. Smartly so, with Mietta’s now closed and Jean-Paul retired, the Japanese Slipper continues to run around town with a nightlife of its own. Try Nick Tesar’s modern blue twist at Bar Liberty, also in Melbourne.
