Japan: Masters of taste

Tastes Travel is one of the leading houses of bespoke epicurean travel. For over a quarter of a century, we have nurtured deeply personal, closed-door relationships with elite winemakers, world-class chefs, private estate owners, and luxury hoteliers.

When designing your journey in Japan, we optimize your time and movement across its historic prefectures using GranClass or Green Car reserved seating on the Shinkansen bullet trains, alongside premium chauffeured vehicles for effortless regional transfers. We provide expert cultural guides, sake masters, and regional specialists to foster private access, meaningful connections, and exceptional gastronomy.

When you travel with Tastes Travel, you step directly into private cellars, hidden micro-distilleries and historic dining rooms where justly famous Japanese precision elevates the simple into high art. One such experience comes in the form of a private vertical tasting of the legendary Yoichi Single Malt, a celebrated Japanese whisky from a seminal Hokkaido distillery which marries once-traditional Scottish methods with Japanese rigour.

LEGEND SPOTLIGHT: The Spirit of Yoichi

In the early 1920s, a quiet rebellion reshaped the world of spirits. Masataka Taketsuru took a monumental gamble. Abandoning his family’s prestigious, 200-year-old sake lineage, Taketsuru traded wealth and security for an obsessive, unproven dream: creating an authentic, world-class single malt whisky on Japanese soil.

Recognising his unmatched technical expertise, wealthy entrepreneur Shinjiro Torii hired Taketsuru to build and establish the historic Yamazaki Distillery outside Kyoto, effectively launching the foundation of the modern Suntory empire. But the partnership foundered. Taketsuru was a purist, determined to produce the heavy, smoky, peated whiskies he had mastered in the rugged distilleries of Scotland. Torii, ever the pragmatist, demanded a smoother, sweeter liquid tailored to the un-smoked preference of the local palate. When their first heavily peated bottle flopped commercially, the public ridiculed the spirit as “medicinal smoke,” and Taketsuru was sidelined.

Refusing to compromise his craft, in 1934 Taketsuru packed up his life and started again in the remote northern island of Hokkaido, alongside his Scottish wife, Rita Cowan, who had crossed oceans to support his dream.

When World War II arrived, Rita faced severe isolation and harassment from local authorities who suspected her of being a foreign spy. Yet, the couple persevered. The Yoichi Distillery focused on establishing traditional, direct coal-fired copper stills—a painstaking, high-intensity distillation method that even Scotland was beginning to abandon.

Decades after the initial ridicule, and long after the pioneers had passed, the ultimate vindication arrived. In a historic 2001 international blind tasting hosted by Whisky Magazine, the world’s elite spirits experts stripped away all labels and brands. When the scores were tallied, Taketsuru’s uncompromising, coal-fired Yoichi Single Malt was officially crowned the absolute best in the world, defeating every legendary distillery in Scotland.