The Botanist Foraged Cocktail Competition – Japan

The Botanist Japan held its first foraged cocktail competition, comprising a host of bartenders from across Tokyo.

The group started their foraging experience with a bus tour to a herb garden in the heart of the city, picking a diverse range of local botanicals. They enjoyed a short botanical seminar by a herbalist, and a cocktail-making session. After going back to their respective bars, the bartenders submitted their foraged cocktail recipes by creating videos.

After an initial judging process, the five finalists performed at the venue, CoSTUME NATIONAL / WALL, where the judges included the chairman of the Japanese Bartenders Association.

The competition champion was Hiroyasu Kayama, the owner of local bar Benfiddich (in fact, “KA” means dear, “YAMA” means mountain, therefore he named his bar Benfiddich). Satoshi Sugiura and Yosuke Shimoya finished joint second. The trio will visit Bruichladdich and take a foraging tour in the Spring – we look forward to welcoming them to the distillery.

Creativity（創造性）をテーマに、日本国内にて自生および栽培されているボタニカル（植物の芽・実・皮・茎・根など）を自らの手で採取（Foraged）し、

The Botanistのコンセプトを活かしたオリジナルカクテルを競うコンペティションが開催されました。

2015年6月22日に行われたファイナルでは、ファイナリスト5名の中から、最終選考会にて

鹿山　博康氏（Bar Benfiddich店主、東京都新宿区）の「2 regional botanical」が最優秀賞に選ばれました。

次点は同点で杉浦　聡氏、下屋　陽亮氏が選ばれ、ブルックラディ蒸留所でのForage体験ツアーを獲得しました。

Competition entries:

The Regional Botanical – by Hiroyasu Kayama

Botanist Tomartini – by Masami Makino

BGM (Botanical Gin Mojito) Japanese style – by Hiroto Igarashi

Summer Botanical – by Yosuke Shimoya

Botanicalase – by Satoshi Sugiura