Aibou TV Season 6 Episode 14 - Amber-Colored Murder(琥珀色の殺人)

Subtitle: Amber-Colored Murder(琥珀色の殺人)

 Makoto Katsuya(勝谷 誠), a famous whiskey critic with a sharp tongue is murdered in his home, located in a rural area. His reviews were so scathing that his articles caused some bars to go out of business. Though the Tokumeigakari pair aren't at the scene of the crime, they later visit CSI Yonezawa to look through the evidence. Inspector Ukyō examines a crime scene photograph and realizes that something is amiss.

Characters appearing/mentioned in the story

Rintarō Miyoshi(三好 倫太郎) - He was the bartender for Remembrance (season 1 episode 7). While Miyoshi was in prison, Michiaki Hanabusa(英 道明) wrote a letter to Miyoshi asking him to work at a Cask location once he got out of prison. A short while ago, he was released early for good behavior and started bartending at Cigar Cask #3.

At the start of the episode, he cleans up the crime scene. He switched the Old Edward brand of whiskey(famous blended scotch) for the Pairtiche (1970) bottle. He also wiped off fingerprints from one of the bottles in the room. He is not familiar with cigars and so did not clean up the cigar Katsuya was smoking at the time of his death.

After realizing that Miyoshi is the bartender at Cigar Cask #3, they visit his bar to question him about the crime scene photograph. During the visit, Miyoshi offers one of the many old bottles at the bar, the Ardspey bottle to the Tokumeigakari pair. Later when the Tokumeigakari pair question him about the night Katsuya was killed, Miyoshi claims that he was tending to his bar until midnight. It takes an hour to go to Katsuya's residence and come back by car.

He uses nitrogen to treat the wine so that they will always taste fresh, almost as if the bottle were just opened.

Michiaki Hanabusa(英 道明) - Owner and proprietor of the three Cigar Cask bar locations, He is the bartender at the original Cigar Cask location in Ginza, which offers (mostly Cuban) cigars in addition to alcoholic beverages, mostly more recent vintages because this location is a cigar bar. He doesn't use nitrogen to treat the wine at his location because most of them are recent and because fermented wine goes well with cigar smoking customers (and nitrogen slows down the fermentation process).

He was a customer at Rintarō Miyoshi(三好 倫太郎)'s bar Remembrance years ago.

Surprisingly, Katsuya was a regular customer at the original Cigar Cask location. Katsuya bought and smoked cigars at the store because he liked high quality cigars, and carrying them around dries the cigars out.

Eiko Fujii(藤井 詠子) - Former bartender of Cigar Cask #2. Her bar closed as a result of Katsuya's criticism. Katsuya was not happy that Fujii offered Red Cow as a high quality drink to a pair of regular customers,an elderly couple. However, the brewers of Red Cow had changed its ingredients over the years to those of lower quality, and Katsuya believed that in this case, Fujii should have offered another drink of a better quality at the same price.

After her store went out of business a week ago, she spent last week going from bar to bar and drinking around. She has not gone home since her store closed. She keeps on saying that she wants to drink Miyoshi's cocktail, specifically mentioning "Home Sweet Home."

Her store closed shortly after Miyoshi came out from prison.

Makoto Katsuya(勝谷 誠) - A harsh but knowledgeable whiskey critic. He is divorced and doesn't have any children. His former wife lives in Los Angeles and refused to claim his body.

While drinking whiskey and smoking a cigar between 11 PM and 1 AM, this whiskey critic was killed after being hit on the head with his own whiskey encyclopedia, which fractured his cervical(neck) vertebrae.  His maid later discovered his body.

Looking at the crime scene photograph showing the last glass of whiskey Katsuya drank, Inspector Ukyō noticed that the whiskey (around 400000 yen in value) and water had formed separate layers. This indicated that Katsuya poured ice into his glass with his whiskey. However, whiskey connoisseurs almost never do this because the ice causes the pleasant aroma from the whiskey to evaporate away.

Only one bottle from the room, a bottle of Old Edward, did not have any fingerprints on it. Old Edward is a brand of blended scotch whisky, which can be enjoyed with ice.

Later Sergeant Kaoru learns from Miwako that Chino Magazine called and asked her to write a replacement article for one that Katsuya was supposed to write for them. Katsuya told the magazine's editor that he was writing an article to call out a bartender who doesn't have the right to bartend because that individual had killed a bar's owner. The editors never received a copy of that article.