Today I took a trip to Yamazaki Station in Kyoto Prefecture to visit the Suntory Yamazaki Distillery. Yamazaki Station is barely in Kyoto Prefecture and everything I saw today was in Osaka Prefecture. Yamazaki itself is in Osaka Prefecture.

But seriously, there’s NOTHING near Yamazaki Station.

Very close by is this shrine. I can’t read the name of it and it’s probably the Rikyu Hachiman-gū Shrine.

As is the case lately, I came in through the side gate.

Yesterday it was a mystery cow; today it’s a horse.

I kept going down the street and found Seki Daimyojin Shrine that had all sorts of signs. In fact, one of the signs seemed to indicate a historic path between Osaka and Kyoto.

But really, it was just sent me down a neighborhood street.

Here’s the signs I kept seeing, and of course it led me straight to…

A factory?

Soon enough I found my way back into a neighborhood. I also saw a speed trap but I figured taking pictures of cops was pushing my luck.

I checked Google maps to make sure I was headed the right direction and I saw a temple sign on the map. It was on the way to Minase Jing? Shrine, but the temple was closed.

 Minase Jing? Shrine was fairly impressive, and it’s an Imperial Shrine.

As I was about to leave I noticed more and more people lining up to get water out of a boring looking tap.

It turns out that the spring that feeds the Suntory Distillery is also feeds the spring that comes out of the water tap. I also read that famous tea ceremony schools hold tea ceremonies here.

I headed back towards my real destination of the day, the Suntory Yamazaki Distillery. I used to think Japanese whisky was awful but Suntory makes some tasty single-malt whiskies.

I got there fairly early and they let me go on the 1PM tour rather than the 2PM tour I signed up for. There are old stills outside of the factory.

Here’s two important guys I wasn’t paying enough attention to.

There’s a small museum downstairs that you can get into almost any time, but the real fun comes when you sign up for the hour-long tour. You have to make reservations and I had to make reservations a week in advance.

Inside there’s all the cooking vats. I don’t know much about how to make distilled spirits so I won’t pretend.

And various stills of different styles to produce different distillate. You can just see the bulby one on the very left. I took a whole year of Physical Chemistry, one of the hardest classes I’ve taken, and most of it was about distilleries.

Non-temperature controlled casks.

Cask Number 1! (I think it’s just for show).

I’m not sure what the black barrels are.

Here’s some of the special Yamazaki spring water in their garden behind the plant.

Some snacks to eat with the whisky.

The first sample was their new young single-malt they sell for “high-balls”. They had it with seltzer and ice with a side of their spring water. After that they had Yamazaki 12 and Hakushu 12 for tasting with water and ice. I asked for it straight to taste it. Hakushu has more of a sweet flavor, but Ithink I prefer the Yamazaki.

Behind the factory is a shrine. You have to go through the main gate, but I was told you can just tell them you’re going to the shrine and they’ll let you through the factory.

There’s also a “tasting room” where you can taste various single-malt Scotch whiskies and also all the Suntory products. I was looking at the Yamazaki 25 for a while since it’s 10x the price of the Yamazaki 12 and I figured this would be my only chance to try it. I paid ¥2,300 (almost $30) for 15ml. In comparison, a normal “shot” or “jigger” is 1½ oz or about 45ml. It was sweet and complex and had more flavor than the Yamazaki 12. I’m not sure I can describe it properly but I really enjoyed it.

 On the way back I got a picture of the Meiji factory that has a giant fake chocolate bar on the side of it. It’s somewhere not very close to Takatsuki station.

So, in reality, I drank my lunch today. And it was an expensive lunch as well. But I also found a Starbucks close to the hotel that wasn’t on Google maps and had a muffin as well. I spent a bunch of time trying to get the free wifi to work but I never was successful.

For dinner I decided to get okonomiyaki. The hotel suggested a place in the basement of Harbis Plaza, very close by, and under the Ritz-Carlton. There were a lot of restaurants down there.

I got the autumn special.

I also got some teppan gyoza. It’s flat grilled gyoza and quite tasty. Certainly worth the ¥2,570.

I also found out that our friends in Toyama have to go to a funeral and I have to redo a bunch of my travel plans at for the end of this week. I found out in the middle of the day when I was away from my computer and any information. I’ll have to figure out what to do tomorrow morning. More excitement!