Visiting Nikka in Sendai wasn’t enough, we also wanted to visit Yamazaki to explore their offerings and take part in a Japanese whisky tasting!

If you are visiting either Kyoto or Osaka and have an extra day to spare, I definitely recommend taking the 30 minute train ride to Yamazaki to visit the distillery (which is located between the two cities). If you want to actually see the distillery process, be sure to reserve 3 months ahead of time! We didn’t know that, so were happy to discover that you can still visit the museum, whisky library, and tasting room free of charge. Trust me, this is an amazing opportunity to taste rare whisky at a very low price. Also, at the gift shop you are able to purchase the difficult to find Yamazaki single malts and distillery only bottles!