Another amazing full on week welcoming friends from all around the world as well as looking after a fabulous group from (Saratoga) America with our friends from @rascalandthorn helping them enjoy Islay in the sun have a wee look and just some of what we got up to #islay #sun #sea #whisky #photography
I was so excited to read of the opening of the new @capellakyoto hotel and its signature restaurant, the aptly named @sonoma.by.singlethread from @kyleconnaughton and @lumberjackieo especially given that I was planning to be in Kyoto shortly after its planned opening. With a free day in my schedule, I decided to book both the restaurant and hotel. My stay and my dinner were nothing short of magical! The hotel epitomizes old world Japanese elegance and luxury with a particularly priceless highlight being their daily Maiko show, featuring a mesmerizing performance from the student geisha or geiko.
The hotel comes from a line well recognized by @50best_hotels and i would be surprised if it did not immediately jump onto the next list.
Japan is full of many forms of magic! Whisky in all of its forms is one of them. The tour put together by @whiskey_traveling and @rascalandthorn with @japan_whisky_tours for @smwsamerica had a laser focus on the best of the best of Japanese whisky as well as the food, amazing people, culture and beauty of this magnificent land! This is Part Three of a distillation in 3 parts.
The tour finished with a bang in the south of Japan. A Shinkansen took us from Kyoto to Fukuoka, where we visited what may be the most impressive whisky bar that I have ever been to - @barhiguchi - where it’s super impressive collection of Japanese and Scotch whiskies would have been enough to earn that plaudit, but we were also served the most delicious Moscow Mule ever, made with homemade ginger vodka!
The final day of the tour brought us even further south to the area around Kagoshima and the southern point of the island, where we were treated to visits to two superb distilleries making great whiskies - @kanosukedistillery and @mars_tsunuki .
It was a fitting finish to a wonderful tour with wonderful people!
Japan is full of many forms of magic! Whisky in all of its forms is one of them. The tour put together by @whiskey_traveling and @rascalandthorn with @japan_whisky_tours for @smwsamerica had a laser focus on the best of the best of Japanese whisky as well as the food, amazing people, culture and beauty of this magnificent land! This is Part Two of a distillation in 3 parts.
@suntory_hakushu was the largest distillery on the tour, but its legendary beauty and juice lived up to their great reps. A highlight of the tour was a visit to a wonderful wasabi farm on our way to Shizuoka. Even though it was raining, it was fun to pull up fresh wasabi from the ground and even more, tasting it!
@shizuoka_distillery was the distillery revelation of the tour. The distillery tour was great, but their whiskies were were downright delicious. I personally had never had them prior to this visit.
From Shizuoka, we bulleted to Kyoto, which was about to explode with cherry blossoms! Always beautiful, the city was pure magic! We had a free day to do what we want. I will post my activities in a separate set of posts.
Japan is full of many forms of magic! Whisky in all of its forms is one of them. The tour put together by @whiskey_traveling and @rascalandthorn with @japan_whisky_tours for @smwsamerica had a laser focus on the best of the best of Japanese whisky as well as the food, amazing people, culture and beauty of this magnificent land! This is Part One of a distillation in 3 parts.
The tour started in Tokyo and featured a meeting of two SMWS chapters, that from the US and @smws_japan sharing drams, food, stories and karaoke. A sumo lunch was another highlight before moving to the legendary @chichibu_distillery where we even got to drink drams with the legend himself - Ichiro! Top- notch whisky bars, a visit to the gleaming and incredibly promising @komoro_distillery and an overnight at the wonderful @hutwalden completed this section of the tour. Stay tuned for parts 2 & 3, coming soon!
Certain new distilleries really get me excited for what's to come! The Kuju Distillery is one at the top of that list. Modern, clean distillery. Working with different yeast types. Proprietary filtering methods. Lots of different maturation types.
And the hospitality!! ❤️❤️
Utoda-san took us around everything including 3 different warehouses and pulled out some special bottles in his office / tasting room. The 2nd fill Ex-Bourbon Hogshead might have been one of the best drams of the entire month for me. Good stuff!
Can't wait to see where they head.
A wonderful evening for our last night in Tokyo with members of the Japanese SMWS who brought some very special bottles to share!
And the Karaoke was off the charts.
Japanese product, Japanese aesthetic, Japanese soul, Japanese technique fused with European technique and style @restaurantnarisawa forge an unforgettable memory of beauty, deliciousness and true luxury. A huge thank you to Chef Yoshihiro Narisawa ( @yoshihironarisawa ), @leonarisawa and their wonderful team for a truly extraordinary meal and experience!
本当にありがとうございました。またお会いできることを楽しみにしております。
Another newer and exciting distillery in Japan is the Shindo Lab Distillery. Located northeast of Fukuoka, it's making some special single malt and experimenting with different yeast, barley and filtering processes to create its own unique style and flavor profiles. It was super clean, modern and efficient like so many of the newer Japanese distilleries. We tasted some straight from the cask which was special, especially the Mizunara cask. A super exciting distillery to watch and visit.
Another new Distillery to check out.
Ontake Distillery is located less than an hour from Kagoshima and is going all in! They started from a Shochu background and still makes some great products, including some Sherry aged rice whisky Shochu that was amazing and over 10 years old.
Our first part of the visit was visiting all of the Shochu production. We then drove to the new Whisky Distillery located on a beautiful property above a golf course overlooking a volcano. Quite spectacular. You can tell a lot of investment was made into this facility. The production was clean and modern, using many of the same pieces of equipment that you see at other new distilleries.
The warehouse was accessed by a bridge over water and was stunning, as well as their tasting room. All in all an amazing place that I look forward to visiting again!
We love visiting newer distilleries and the Hinokami Distillery in southern Kyushu was exciting! Featuring a modern design with old school Scottish techniques, their whisky has big promises. They don't have a release yet over 3 years of age, but what we tasted was excellent.
The distillery is beautiful. Clean, modern. They even have a continuous still for making grain whisky in another building. The tasting room was beautiful with the volcano in the distance, and their tasting in the dark and in silence was truly unique. I can't wait to see their future!
We love visiting Kanosuke!
It's located on the coast in such a beautiful setting and the variety of whisky they produce is truly unique. From pot still Irish style to single malt and to amazing blends. And a lot of ex-Shochu casks.
One of the most exciting "newer" distilleries in Japan for sure!
