A world first!Made in Japan bitters,
'The Japanese Bitters' is finally born!
<Part 1>

This month we feature The Japanese Bitters, a bartender's bitters made with Japanese ingredients, which took eight years to launch - here's the full story!

writer：RyokoKuraishi

This year, a new item has been created that is set to take the bar by storm.
It is called 'The Japanese Bitters'.
Cocktail bitters are currently booming around the world, but this is the world's first truly made-in-Japan bitters, with a recipe developed from scratch by a Japanese bartender.

The man behind it is Yuki Yamazaki, who is also the Asian ambassador for Bobby's Gin.
Here is the story behind the birth of The Japanese Bitters, from the development of Japanese-flavoured bitters, which convinced him in Canada, to the acquisition of a brewing licence over the course of a year.


Even before its official release, The Japanese Bitters has been promoted and monitored in countries around the world and has received a great response.
This month, three distinctively Japanese flavours - Shiso, Yuzu and Umami - were released.


All use only ingredients sourced directly from farmers in Japan.
The low-temperature vacuum extraction process, a completely new production method, ensures that the freshness of the ingredients is preserved in the bottle, resulting in a highly concentrated bitters.

The workshop of The Japanese Bitters, a self-renovation of a private house, is located here.

All products are premium, individually handmade and bottled by hand.


The label, inspired by a hanging scroll, was designed by Paris-based calligrapher and painter Tetsuya Sagara.
Both the title and the illustration featuring the ingredients are chic, finished in black ink.


Yamazaki-san came up with the idea of using Japanese ingredients in bitters eight years ago.
It was a homemade bitters he came across in a bar in Toronto.


Let's take a look back at Ms Yamazaki's career here.


At the age of 20, Mr Yamazaki moved to London to study the language.
His bartending career also started in London.


'I was playing music at the time, so I had a yearning for London.
When I finally came to London, I couldn't find band mates if I couldn't speak English satisfactorily.
That's when bars came to the rescue.
There were lots of bars in London where you could jump in and have a jam session, where you could play freely."

Yamazaki's original cocktail with bitters.

This is why I started going to bars at night.
At these bars, the bartenders would sometimes stand on stage and perform, and they looked really cool.
This led him to develop a strong yearning to become a bartender.


Thus, he started his career as an apprentice bartender at a sushi bar that served sake cocktails on the menu.
Someday, he would like to travel the world as a bartender.


When he returned to Japan after two and a half years, he chose a job in a bar without hesitation.
There, he met Takayuki Suzuki of Park Hotel Tokyo.
He underwent a thorough four-year bartending apprenticeship under a wonderful mentor.
It was a fulfilling four years, as he says: "The bartending I experienced in London and the bartending in Japan were completely different."

The prototype was also well received in overseas monitoring conducted with it.

After four years of training, Yamazaki's overseas fever grew again and he went to Toronto on a working holiday.
He happened to win a cocktail competition he entered, which quickly brought him into close contact with local bartenders, and he ended up working in a bar in Toronto.


'Compared to Japan, bars in the West use bitters more frequently, but Canadian bartenders in particular were obsessed with homemade bitters.
It was around 2010 when I learnt how they made them and started making homemade bitters with my favourite herbs and spices.
This was interesting and I started to experiment in search of my own bitters.


The turning point came in 2011, when the Great East Japan Earthquake happened.
The turning point came in 2011, when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, and the Japanese Embassy in Canada organised a charity event at which Yamazaki was asked to make a charity cocktail.

At an overseas workshop where the promotion took place.

'It's an event to support Japan, so I thought I'd serve cocktails made with Japanese ingredients.
That's when it occurred to me to make a bitters with Japanese ingredients."
This was a big hit with the Canadians.
This was a big hit with the Canadians. Mr Yamazaki was convinced that Japanese bitters were the way to go.


Afterwards, Mr Yamazaki returned to Japan and proceeded to develop Japanese-flavoured bitters in earnest.
In 2013, when he exhibited a prototype at the Spirits of Toronto cocktail event in Canada, he received a string of enquiries from abroad.


'I definitely want to give this a shape, and I can't wait to get it out into the world.
I was so impressed by the response that I decided to ask some manufacturer to manufacture it as an OEM first.


It would normally have been possible to commercialise the product immediately at this point.However, it would be another five years before 'The Japanese Bitters' would see the light of day.


Continued in Part 2.