Day 15 - Thursday 12th April, 2018
Today is our visit to the Yamazaki Whiskey Distillery, I booked this tour in February, they only take a certain number in each tour (there are 4 in a day) so you need to book in advance, I booked us in the last tour of the day at 2.50pm. Only Y1,000 (approx. A$12.65) which includes tastings at the end of the tour.
We left the hotel at 10 am and decided to have another stroll along the Tenjinbashisuji arcade before taking the train to the Yamazaki Whiskey Distillery, you can buy anything down this arcade. We purchased some lovely gifts to bring home to Australia.
We came across this liquor shop selling Yamazaki whiskey along with other Japanese whiskey's so much cheaper than you can buy in Australia. I should have bought a bottle from here as they didn't sell it at the distillery which was disappointing and I didn't see it again in any of the liquor shops for the remainder of our travels.
These steps are at the Osaka train station
I took this photo from the train, typical Japanese apartment living with washing out on the balconies and the bedding airing over the balconies.
Yamazaki station is where we got off, this is the town we walked through to get to the distillery.
We walked across train tracks to get to the distillery
We had to wait at the boom gates as there was a train crossing
It was a 15 minute walk through the town to reach the distillery, luckily there was signage for us to follow.
Mr. Torii, the founder of Suntory
Our lovely tour guide, the tour is done in Japanese although the guide did speak English, I was talking with her after the tour. They do have English, Chinese and French audio, at each spot the tour guide was talking in Japanese we needed to press a number on the audio device to hear it in English.
Hundreds and hundreds of barrels
I came across the year 1992, my youngest daughter was born in this year
One of the distilling pots, very hot and smelly in this room
The end of the tour and there is a beautiful serene garden out the back with a lovely waterfall
They even have a shrine on the grounds
Statues of Mr. Torii
Finally here we are at the tastings, they were more than tastings, more than a nip in each glass.
We were given instructions before drinking each one and explained to us at which stage of the distilling they were from. We were also given a bottle of soda water which I thought was to drink alone and had already poured into my glass, but no we were to fill the glass with ice then pour the whiskey over the ice and then pour in the soda water, hahahaah………….
This is the soda water which Suntory also produce at the Yamazaki distillery as they have very pure water which makes the whiskey so great and delicious.
Here we are after the tour and purchasing our souvenirs
We enjoyed a wonderful day and made our trek back to the train station to catch the 5.07pm train back to Osaka. The train takes about 25mins from Osaka station to Yamazaki station.
I was going to add our day trip to Kyoto as well but so far the post is still all here so I'll end it and start another one. I don't want to risk losing this for a third time.
Cheers
Kaylee
What fun! I also took that tour and tasting. I'm not a whiskey drinker, but it was all interesting and I had to try it while I was there.
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