Hungry Sea Otter

The marvelous sea otter is the subject of this week’s musings, as I report on location from my getaway on the gulf of Mexico. Otters are “semi-aquatic” mammals who live on coastlines, riverbank, lakes and oceans, eating fish and being generally playful and cute. They are also somewhat notorious for the lovely scent they deposit along their territorial habitats. Otters once flourished in Japan as well, but due to hunting and pollution, the Japanese otter is now an extinct species. We will have to make due with this adorable fellow from Karakuri Creation Group artist Yasuaki Kikuchi, who is up to his clever antics again with one of his newest creation, the Hungry Sea Otter. Like many of his creations, the otter is an impressive work, larger and intricate, with perfect details that augment the theme. Yasuaki shared some stories about the design.

“There are two reasons why I wanted to make this sea otter. First, I was surprised to learn that sea otters are now an endangered species, even though they were easy to see at aquariums when I was little. Also, I wanted to express the cute way they eat shellfish by spinning around and playing with them. Second, there is a step-like mechanism in the step-by-step lock method of the traditional secret box, and I wanted to apply that to express movement that goes beyond just sliding. As a result, I was able to create a Karakuri box that follows the movement based on the ecology of the sea otter and the lock system of the secret box.

The difficulty in making it was that there are multiple mechanisms, so it was difficult to align each movement and achieve precision. Also, the mechanisms inevitably took up a lot of space, which made the piece itself larger and affected the shape.

For this reason, I adjusted the angle of the head many times and put glass beads in the eyes in order to express the cuteness of the sea otter. I tried out many different edge treatments to create the look of the nose and the rounded edges of various animals.” I think he has succeeded very nicely, producing a very cute critter and a secret mechanism which combines elements from the theme with those of a traditional Japanese himitsu-bako. Opening the box is not easy or obvious, but once you understand the concept it makes perfect sense, and is rather brilliant.

The toast to the otter requires some explanation. Musk is a specialized secretion produced by some animals to mark their territory. It was originally named after the musk deer, which has these glands under the abdominal skin. The glands are pod-like and may have been mistaken for testicles, because the word musk derives from that original Greek or Sanskrit word root. I wouldn’t recommend making a cocktail with actual musk, but I have had this idea for a tasty “musk themed” cocktail using amaro for a while, and was waiting for an appropriate pairing. It turns out that otters have prominent musk glands, so it is time to debut this irreverent drink.

The other interesting component of this amaro “sour” style cocktail is that it is sweetened with date syrup, which is also known as silan. The syrup is readily available at specialty food shops or online, and should be fairly common depending on where you live. It’s a staple of middle eastern cooking and lends a rich depth of flavor in place of standard sugar. It compliments this particular amaro, which tastes of cola, cloves, lemon and orange, extremely well. The drink is further anchored with rye whisky, and a touch of Fernet Branca, which balances the sweetness of the syrup and base amaro perfectly. It’s so delicious you should go tweet about it – cheers!

Silan Musk

1 ½ oz Cio Ciaro

¾ oz rye

1 oz lemon

½ oz silan syrup

¼ oz Fernet Branca

½ oz egg white (or magic foamer)