~5h — the round trip from the gangway, with the 60-minute margin kept aside.
Tap a photo to see it large. 5 photographs, each credited.
Masataka Taketsuru learned distilling in Scotland in 1918, married a Scot named Rita Cowan, came home and chose Yoichi because the weather reminded him of Speyside. Founded 1934, still coal-fired direct distillation, and the house he lived in is on site.
A chemist went to Scotland, married a Scot, and came back to build this
Masataka Taketsuru went to Scotland in 1918 to learn distilling, married a Scot, and came back convinced that only Hokkaido had the right climate. He built Yoichi in 1934 with coal-fired stills, which almost nobody still uses. The site is about fifty minutes from Otaru and the buildings are original.
In 1918 a young Japanese chemist enrolled at Glasgow University to learn how whisky was actually made. He came home with a notebook, a Scottish wife, and a conviction that Japan’s whisky should be made somewhere cold and grey — which is why the distillery is twenty-five minutes from this port.
And fills two notebooks with distilling practice
Against both families’ wishes
And disagrees about the site
Starting with apple juice — hence Nikka
Take the train, drink the Yoichi single malt neat, and photograph the return timetable before you leave Otaru.
Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
25 minutes each way is the honest figure for train ~25 min, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 4 hr 10 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
See · ~1hFinished in 1923 on reclaimed land so barges could unload straight into the warehouses.
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Eat · ~2hA whole street of counters in a town that has lived on cold water for a century.
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See · ~2hA kilometre of former merchant houses now holding glassworks, music-box makers and more soft-serve than any street needs.
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