I hopped on the ferry departing the main island of Okinawa for Iejima, which was 30 minutes away. My final destination: a tour of a certain rum distillery on the island of Iejima. I had heard that Ie Rum Santa Maria has a fabulous reputation and makes their rum from sugarcane, so I was eager to check it out!

Around 10 Million Poppy Flowers in a 7-Hectare Garden. The garden in front of the beer factory is filled with blooming cherry blossoms and poppies in spring, and cosmos in the fall.
Around 10 million poppy flowers are in bloom to enjoy from mid-to-late May. The park is free to get in to, so during blooming season the area is very crowded!
On the park’s free tours, you can see first-hand the ingredients and materials used to make beer, taste the wort that becomes beer, and even taste freshly-made beer.
Enjoy a tour of the factory alongside the blooming flowers!

The trip to Tohoku’s gateway station, Sendai Station, takes about 90 minutes on the Shinkansen from Tokyo. If you walk a bit past Sendai’s main city area, you can find many delicious varieties of alcohol born from the rich nature of Tohoku. This time, I took a trip to both a distillery where you can sample whiskey for free and Miyagi Prefecture’s one and only winery.

Established in 1872, the Tomioka Silk Mill was opened to contribute to the modernization of Japan by the Meiji government, and it was Japan’s first machine-based silk mill. In the past, Japan’s government exported silk as a means to gather funds to promote the development of science and technology. Tomioka Silk Mill has remained mostly unchanged since those times. It has been registered as a World Heritage Site.

It may interest you to know that Niigata City has much more to offer than the hot springs it’s often associated with. This time, we’ve prepared a two-part series of articles to introduce you to some of its lesser-known wonders.