You Should Know About Japan's True Cocktail Hot Spot

Japan is a country that's teeming with must-visit places, each area of the map a hot spot for its own unique reasons. You know the big ones: you can see the cherry blossoms in bloom in Nara, experience a traditional tea ceremony in Kyoto, marvel at the temples and shrines in Tokyo, and get your fill of street food in Osaka. But have you heard of Utsunomiya? The lesser-known city is Japan's hub for some of the best cocktails in the country.

Continually breeding some of the best bartenders in the world, Utsunomiya has steadily transformed itself. A place known for its gyoza and jazz has become a true cocktail destination, slowly but surely taking the city's bar scene from essentially non-existent to an integral part of life there.

So you may want to add this small, unassuming city to the list of long reasons why Japan is worth visiting, especially if you're a cocktail enthusiast.

Before the 1990s, Utsunomiya didn't have much of a bar scene at all. Decades-long bartender Nobuyuki Ogawa told Punch that "it was a bottle-service city," meaning people would typically buy a bottle of cheap whiskey and keep it at the bar to slowly chip away at over several visits. There wasn't much interest in craft cocktails, vintage collections, or innovative ingredients.

But that began to change in 1987 when Utsunomiya-based bartender Akira Tajima entered the International Bartenders Association contest and won for his cocktail concoction called "Little Cat." That same year, another Utsunomiya native won Japan's Nippon Bartenders Association contest, and from there it was an avalanche of trophies for the city, as its bartenders took home titles four years in a row.

It was too much to be a coincidence, and the city's highly skilled bartenders have continued to bring home prizes over the years. So many great bartenders meant lots of great bars with lots of great cocktails, and people caught on. Thanks to the passion and expertise of the bartenders there, and the efforts of the Utsunomiya Cocktail Club, this under-the-radar city is now a destination for cocktail lovers in the know.

In 1999, the prize-winning bartenders of Utsunomiya banded together to build the Utsunomiya Cocktail Club, to effectively evangelize the city's cocktail culture and draw in fellow cocktail enthusiasts. Today, you'll find around thirty bars within a mile radius that together form the city's unique cocktail culture.

While Ginza is thought of as the epicenter of cocktail culture in Tokyo, Utsunomiya offers the same level of quality and technique without any pretentiousness. The city's cocktail culture is built on bar-hopping; it's not bar competing against bar, but rather all of them operating as more of a unit. It's a less expensive, less formal, more friendly experience that'll guarantee impressively concocted craft cocktails along the way.

What kinds of drinks can you expect to find in Utsunomiya? Expect a perfect blend of time-honored classic cocktails, inventive originals, and vibrant drinks abundant with seasonally fresh fruit. At the upscale Bar Chamonix, you can sip on cocktails muddled with homegrown ingredients like ginger, sansho pepper, and herbs. At the loungey Bar Cave, your cocktails are paired with cigars. At Sukatto, you'll see more than 400 kinds of whiskey behind the bar. And at Paipu no Kemuri Aoki, there's even an all-you-can-drink option.