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Makers & Origins

Drink

Brewing Sake in an Era of Peace

How Heiwa Shuzo’s “Ko-Tsurume” Redefined the Language of Umeshu Through Ten Years of Aging

Bar

When Silence Takes Center Stage at Night

In April 2026, France 24 published an article titled “Listening bars blossom as the hottest new nightlife trend.” From New York and London to Paris and Bangkok, these rapidly multiplying venues across major global cities share a common DNA: vacuum tube amplifiers, large-format speakers, walls lined with analog records, united by a singular purpose: to listen to music. Their origin traces back nearly a century, to Tokyo.

Drink

The Philosophy of Working Backward

February 14, 2020. It was Shingo Gokan’s 37th birthday. The bartender had won the Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition, been named International Bartender of the Year at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards, and now leads SG Group, which operates more than a dozen bars across Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York, and Madrid. For his birthday, he chose to release a new shochu brand. This was not a mere coincidence, but an answer to a question he had contemplated for years from behind bar counters around the world.

Drink

When the Five Senses and Data Meet in the Same Brewery

Visit a sake brewery in Japan, and you may see the tōji cup the air of the kōji room in their palm, reading temperature and humidity through the skin. “Brewing with the five senses” is a beautiful phrase. But when the person who possesses those senses is nearing their seventies, with no successor in sight, a reality emerges that beauty alone cannot resolve. As of 2026, Japan has roughly 1,100 sake breweries, representing less than half the number seen at the industry’s peak in the 1970s. Many closures are driven by a lack of successors and labor shortages. When a brewery shuts its doors, the rules of thumb stored in the tōji’s mind, such as “At this air temperature, stir the moromi 30 minutes earlier” or “When the aroma of the kōji changes like this, lower the temperature by 0.5°C,” are often lost without ever being passed on. Now, quietly but unmistakably, a movement is spreading to preserve that “vanishing intuition” as data and hand it to the next generation.

Drink

At the Foot of Nakijin Castle

In Nakasone, Nakijin Village, Kunigami District, in the northern part of Okinawa’s main island, there is a distillery where 35 large storage tanks stand quietly at the foot of the Nakijin Castle Ruins, one of the sites that make up the UNESCO World Heritage “Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu.” Founded in 1948, Nakijin Shuzo Co., Ltd. is the only distillery in Nakijin Village. Over more than 70 years since the chaos of the postwar era, the distillery has refined its long-aged kusu, or mature awamori, into a series named “Sennen no Hibiki” ｜ “Echoes of a Thousand Years.”

Drink

Beyond the Glass

In 2025, the number of international visitors to Japan surpassed 42.7 million, marking a new era of global interest. Tourism spending reached 9.5 trillion yen, as travelers increasingly seek immersive cultural experiences over conventional sightseeing. And among the new destinations quietly gaining presence in this experiential landscape are sake breweries across Japan.

Drink

From 27 to Over 140

In 2021, when the Japan Spirits & Liqueurs Makers Association (JSLMA) announced its voluntary standards for Japanese whisky, there were roughly 27 operating distilleries in the country. Just five years later, in 2026, that number has surpassed 140. This rapid proliferation is exceptional by global standards. Yet, this figure does not signify a mere "bubble." Rather, it signals a quiet tectonic shift unfolding across Japan, as distillers in diverse regions seek to capture the distinct character of their land and their own philosophies within casks.

Drink

Japan as a Wine Country

From April 15 to 17, ProWine Tokyo 2026, an international trade fair for wines and spirits, was held at Tokyo Big Sight. A total of 188 exhibitors from 23 countries and regions took part, and of the 22 seminars held during the event, seven focused directly on Japanese wine itself. The globally renowned wine critic Jancis Robinson MW appeared by video in a session titled “The Current State of Japanese Wine,” while wineries from Nagano, Yamanashi, Hokkaido, and Kumamoto took the stage as producers. In its closing summary, the organizers named “Japanese wine” as one of the three major trends of the fair. The other two were rosé wine and the rise of South America. In Tokyo in April 2026, it was quietly recorded that Japan, as a wine-producing region, had taken its place squarely on the agenda of global industry trends.

Drink

In a Distillery Room Engineered by Eiffel’s Team

Combier Meridor London Dry Gin, Infused with the Memory of the Loire In Saumur, within France’s Loire Valley, the doors of Distillerie Combier｜founded in 1834｜open to reveal a 19th-century distillation hall of iron and copper. This space was designed by the engineering team of Gustave Eiffel, the same mind behind the Eiffel Tower in Paris. […]

Drink

The wines of the Loire Valley

I ｜ Domaine Patrick BAUDOIN The reputation ｜ and popularity ｜ of Loire wines is increasing day by day. Until recently, 80% of Loire production was drunk by the French, who are very attached to the region, to the Loire, its emblematic river, component of their intimate identity, and to its delicate wines. Times are […]

CRAFT BEER

The Thirty-Litre Beginning

Baird Brewing Company and Twenty-Five Years Across from Numazu Harbour In the year 2000, on a corner of Numazu harbour in Shizuoka Prefecture, directly across from the fish market, an American named Bryan Baird and his Japanese wife Sayuri stood before a brew kettle of only thirty litres, scarcely larger than a generous household pot. […]

Drink

The Art of Waiting

The Quiet Resurgence of Kimoto and Yamahai in 2026 Before dawn in a sake brewery, a young kurabito grips a paddle and stands over a shallow tub known as a hangiri, grinding together steamed rice, koji, and water. The “moto-suri uta,” a work song repeated like a chorus, echoes low across the freezing wooden floor. […]

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