Taste Testing Some Japanese Whisky

Hey Steemers,

Today my friends and I travelled from Sapporo to Otaru to check out their supposed "European touch", eat some sushi at a Michelin star restaurant as well as some double cheesecake they are known for.

Not being a huge sushi guy myself, I wasn't so keen on the restaurant but I was definitely feeding off my friends excitement. They both ordered a set of 12 different dishes while I hand picked a few things I thought I wouldn't hate.. they loved their dishes to the bitter end and I wasn't so disappointed with the lean tuna sashimi I ordered.

We then walked around to check out a canal tourist flock to before housing down some double cheesecake for my buddy.

European style canal with boat rides!

After acquiring said cheesecake we left Otaru for Yoichi to take a tour of the Nikka Whisky distillery and get the most out of our rail pass for the day.

Same place with cheesecake had strawberry, whipped cream hot dog crepes? Not sure what they're really called...

Busy intersection in Otaru

Once at the distillery we made our way through the tour, learning a bit about Nikka Whisky and it's creator Masataka Taketsuru and how he brought whisky to Japan. He went alone to Scotland to learn the craft and came home with his wife Rita to establish Japan as a whisky producing country (the man was born into a sake brewing family, alcohol was clearly important to him).

Entrance to the Nikka Whisky Distillery

Barrels for aging whisky

Them barrel making tools

All these hold alcohol..

These too...








A closer look at some of them

Bar setup inside the museum






Some old belongings of Masataka Taketsuru

A big catch by Masataka

A picture and items from Masataka's hunting excursion

Some award winning alcohol made by Nikka

The three drinks available for sample

I'm not a fan of alcohol but what they gave us wasn't so bad.. some apple wine, malt and regular whisky.. surprising this entire tour and samples are free.

After taste testing it was time to head back to Sapporo for dinner where we tried some soup curry for the first time! I'd probably prefer normal Japanese curry 9/10 times but the dish was really good!

And to finish off the night and burn some energy we hit up some batting cages with a pitching mound. I couldn't hit the 100 km/h pitch for the life of me but I think I get an A for effort. (Just kidding I'm a failure and as soon as I'm home I'm going into training mode)

My buddy putting his heart and soul into hitting those targets!

After a long day we made it back to our room to get some rest for out last day in Sapporo. I should be sleeping but instead I'm putting all this together :)

Please upvote, resteem or comment below and I'll be sure to reciprocate!

Until tomorrow.

Cheers,

cipher