'This will surprise you," says chef Kenichi Hashimoto as he hands me a glass of what appears to be beer. This serious-faced chef — who leads the kitchen at Kyoto's Ryozanpaku, a two-Michelin-starred kaiseki (Japanese haute cuisine) restaurant — waits for me to take a sip. He then explains that this fizzy drink is, in fact, a "super-highball" made with Suntory Hitomi (a rare single cask whisky from 1991) and soda, poured in alternating layers and capped with a thick head of creamy foam.