Writ­ten for the Bal­ti­more Amer­i­can Whiskey Club (BAWC) by Owen Lang.

A trav­eler in Edo period Japan mak­ing their way from Tokyo to Osaka by way of the Tōkaidō route would make their last stop in Moriguchi. They might stop for the night, and have a meal and a drink.

Today, across from a post mark­ing the very loca­tion of that stop, lies Rogin’s Tav­ern, the ulti­mate in bour­bon des­ti­na­tions. Pro­pri­etor Sei­ichiro Tat­sumi opened the tav­ern in 1977 in the same loca­tion that his fam­ily has had busi­ness for 16 gen­er­a­tions. A man of many inter­ests, whether it is restor­ing old juke­boxes, or tool­ing around the coun­try­side in an Aston Mar­tin, he always ends up back in the bar with a glass of bourbon.

His col­lec­tion of bour­bon has grown over the years, thanks to his tire­less search among the back­roads of the United States. Based out of his farm in Lex­ing­ton, he dri­ves along back­roads until he sees the faint neon glow of a liquor store. If the store has been around long enough, there might just be a dusty case in the base­ment. If there’s a dusty case in the base­ment there just might be a chance for this charm­ing man from Japan to name the right price.

I spent five days drink­ing my way through the his­tory of Amer­i­can whiskey at Rogin’s Tav­ern. Every night in Osaka, I would return to his bar as the crowds died down, and spend the rest of the evening, tast­ing, talk­ing and lis­ten­ing to vinyl records. As we made our way through his col­lec­tion, his rec­ol­lec­tion of where he pur­chased things astounded me.

“This I found at a Korean liquor store in Wash­ing­ton DC,” he told me, refer­ring to the Pikesville Rye I was tast­ing (dis­tilled in 1924, bot­tled in 1933 in the neigh­bor­hood next to mine, Mt Vernon)

Sip­ping on dif­fer­ent eras of Amer­i­can whiskey, I began to notice dis­tinc­tions. The bold, robust fla­vor of pre-Prohibition era whiskey. The slight corn fla­vor that crept in dur­ing the 50s ad 60s. The smooth crisp­ness that trended in dur­ing the 70s and 80s. In the mid to late 80s the mod­ern taste solid­i­fied. Whether this has to do with the grain bill (non Roundup ready wheat?) the bar­rels (old growth tim­ber?) or sim­ply chang­ing tastes, I can’t quite tell. The grain bill for Ancient Age seems to exist in all eras, and if I was capa­ble of tak­ing bet­ter notes (for­give me, I tasted at least 10 vari­eties every night) I could point to specifics. Suf­fice to say, there are dis­tinct eras of Amer­i­can Whiskey that I had never been able to taste before.

Rogin’s Tav­ern is chocked full of whiskey mem­o­ra­bilia. A tra­di­tional bar that would not look out of place any­where in the United States is on the first floor. A juke­box (restored by our erst­while pro­pri­etor) plays in the cor­ner, and a wide selec­tion of whiskey cov­ers the bar. A food menu hangs from the wall let­ting you know that you can get fried chicken, or cheese­cake (Tatsumi-san’s mother’s recipe!) The first floor bar is acces­si­ble from the Moriguchi stop of the Kei­han line. Climb up the stairs to your left and you will enter a whiskey monger’s heaven. A few tables, and a long squat bar are sur­rounded by a col­lec­tion of whiskey bot­tles full and empty. The entrance to this level is also at street level, but on the other side of the build­ing, on an old road that used to run along a river. This road (as I learned late one night after a few too many) is called “space-time” road. The sec­ond floor bar was his first, and he had been open seven days a week until just a few years ago, when he decided to cut back and close three Sun­days a month. I have to say, if I had that col­lec­tion of whiskey around me, I wouldn’t mind work­ing seven days a week either.

On my last day in Osaka, Tatsumi-san had some­thing very spe­cial in store for me. We agreed to meet for lunch. He chose his favorite spot for grilled eels; when his wife found out, she had to join us, because these eels are not to be missed. We arrived as the restau­rant was open­ing, but still had to wait for the first round of cus­tomers to be served, because we were not the only ones ready for this fine meal. He joked about the “sour mash” sauce that they sea­son the eels with. A bar­rel of fish sauce that has been in con­stant use for 100+ years. When we were finally invited in, I had a front row seat for the process of tak­ing a live eel and turn­ing it in to the most heav­enly grilled dish I expe­ri­enced in Japan. A sim­ple prepa­ra­tion of grilled eel drip­ping in sauce on a bed of rice. The taste and tex­ture were out of this world.

After lunch, we parted ways with his wife, and headed to a liquor store in another part of town, so I could pick up some export only bour­bon to take back with me. After select­ing sev­eral bot­tles of bour­bon I’d never seen in the states, we ran in to a friend of Tatsumi-san’s who hap­pened to be the local Wil­lett rep. We headed to the base­ment for an impromptu tast­ing of a hand­ful of out­stand­ing Wil­lett bour­bons. As we were leav­ing he pre­sented me with a mini bot­tle of 18 year old Noah’s Mill. Feel­ing won­der­ful, and car­ry­ing a giant box of bour­bon, we split up so he could go open the bar for the night.

After a few hours of tourist­ing around, and an out­ra­geous punk show, I made my way back to Rogin’s Tav­ern for one last night of tast­ing. On the agenda was a selec­tion of corn heavy whiskeys span­ning 30+ years. I fin­ished the night with a Saz­erac, and said my final good­bye at around three in the morn­ing. I walked down space-time road to my apart­ment think­ing to myself, what sort of scheme could land me in Osaka permanently.

Moral of the story? Run, don’t walk to Rogin’s Tav­ern in Osaka, before I go back and fin­ish off all of those deli­cious bottles.

High­lights:

1933 Pikeville Rye
1914 Col Tay­lor
1903 Park & Tillford