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Bar Benfiddich

Tokyo

Inventive farm-driven cocktails in an ever-changing Shinjuku hideaway

No two visits to Bar Benfiddich are ever the same. Since your last, Hiroyasu Kayama might have tasted an indigenous drink in some new, remote country, unearthed a new recipe from a dusty book, or planted something on his farm that's just ready to harvest.

Most drinks contain something of that farm in Chichibu, an hour north west of Tokyo. Twigs snapped fresh from mizunara or juniper trees might be used to stir a drink; fennel, grown alongside intensely aromatic mint, finds its way into a farm-fresh Julep, sipped through a century-old pewter straw. Kayama might take a splash of honey water from one of the absinthe drippers hanging above the bar, or he might reach for one of his many bottles whose labels fell off decades ago.

Guests sit at a walnut counter facing those bottles – some of which are global classics, others his own work, including a farm-distilled absinthe – as well as fresh fruit and herbs, inventive infusions and a telling painting of an illicit Highland distilling operation. 

The room has just 17 seats, the atmosphere a mix of quiet focus and curiosity. Guests lean in to watch Kayama work, and often ask questions – about the plant in their drink, the antique tool in his hand, or the old book open on the bar. Bar Benfiddich follows its own style – one that weaves a path between nature, history and your palate.

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