Why not kick off the springtime with a cocktail celebration at Azabu?

From September 1, experience a taste and sip of Japan right in Auckland at Azabu Mission Bay as the restaurant celebrates Hanami, featuring new, enticing cocktail creations from Roku gin and a new spring menu!

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The traditional Japanese festival Hanami (“watching blossoms”) is a 1000-year-old ritual welcoming spring. Thousands of people gather with food and drinks and watch the first blooms of the pink sakura trees across the country, signifying the beginning of spring. Here at Azabu, Hanami will feature their own modern twist, while maintaining the sense of traditionality, enlightening all minds and taste buds. The restaurant will be festooned and decorated with cherry blossom trees, or ‘sakura’ throughout, immersing the diners in a first-hand experience of the usual elements of Japanese spring combined with delicious menus and gin tasting from Roku gin.

Roku’s artisan gin collection, meaning ‘six’, is distilled from six balanced botanicals, harvested at its peak, featuring elements of sakura flower, its leaf, green tea and yuzu peel. It is known as ‘the blessing of Japan’s four seasons in a bottle’.

Azabu’s Roku gin variation cocktails feature a vast combination of tasty elements. Fancy a Roku Spring Highball (Roku, rhubarb liqueur, hibiscus); Roku Negroni (Roku, Italian bitters, vermouth and sakura); or the one I’m looking forward to the most—Roku Suppai (Roku gin, peach liqueur, egg white, lemon, peach bitters, and hibiscus syrup). You will find fruity accents amongst traditional liqueurs, making them refreshing, spring-esque, and gripping as you find yourself ordering another one.

These cocktails will pair perfectly with the refreshing Japanese menu Azabu is known for, highlighting the main focus of Japanese springtime—a time that is meant to be savoured and enjoyed. The new spring seasonal menu, with perfect drink pairings, are a huge highlight to Azabu’s crafted reputation. With added variety, guests can also book an additional experience—with interactive events like ‘Sip and Paint’, housed in Azabu’s classic stonehouse. Imagine a chill afternoon painting sakura, sipping Roku cocktails, and indulging in Azabu’s Japanese classics. Can’t imagine anything better.

Hanami is the perfect time to visit Azabu Mission Bay! You might even win a trip for two to Tokyo, including six nights’ accommodation and a tour of a Suntory Distillery (worth $10,500)!

Hanami runs from September 1 to November 27 at Azabu Mission Bay.
44 Tamaki Drive, Mission Bay, Auckland 1071

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