Five fine yakushu bars in Tokyo

After working for years as the head bartender at Nishi-Azabu mixology bar Amber, Hiroyasu Kayama opened Bar Benfiddich just west of Shinjuku Station in 2013. It’s given him free rein to pursue a longstanding interest in traditional elixirs and herbal liquors, often using ingredients – anise, fennel, wormwood – grown on his family’s plot: look at the shelves behind the counter to see his jars of spices and housemade infusions lined up. Kayama’s apothecary-style mixtures are the main attraction, as he’s as likely to prepare your drink with a pestle and mortar as a cocktail shaker. There’s no menu at Benfiddich, which is decorated in a faux Scottish whisky brewery style, and Kayama says that his recipes are in constant flux. 

Keep wandering into the residential streets past Asakusa’s moribund Hanayashiki amusement park and you might stumble across this most curious of bars. An austere, warehouse-style exterior leads into a room littered with ethnic instruments, hookah pipes and paraphernalia adorned with Sanskrit text (known as bonji in Japanese, hence the place’s name). The generously tattooed owner has some unusual tipples to go with the shisha, including cannabis vodka, deer antler liquor and a few dubious concoctions that he’s prepared himself. One real rarity is the Coca Buton, a discontinued liqueur made with coca leaves that’s rich in sweetness and, we’re relieved to hear, completely free of narcotics. If you’re ending the night here, go for the Kuwansou Rum, made from the mimosa leaf-like Okinawan ‘ditch lily’ that’s said to be great for curing insomnia.