"Antechamber to Mt. Fuji": A Night at Bar Besuto with Jota Tanaka of Fuji Whisky.
- T
- Jul 10
- 5 min read
In a city addicted to spectacle, it’s rare to find a place that whispers. Bar Besuto does not jostle for attention. It does not chase trends, nor does it court the limelight. Instead, it waits, quietly, like a secret kept just for you. Located down a narrow laneway in Sydney and hidden beneath the concrete strata of the city, Bar Besuto is not so much a venue as it is a sanctum - part subterranean shrine, part whisky atelier, and part emotional palimpsest, inscribed anew with every pour.
And when Jota Tanaka, Master Distiller of Fuji Whisky, entered this space on Thursday, 10 July, it wasn’t so much a guest appearance as a summoning. Here was a man whose career has straddled agricultural chemistry and alchemy, whose whiskies are born from the meltwater of Mt. Fuji and matured in the poetic silence of Japanese oak. To host Tanaka in a venue like Besuto was not mere programming. It was alchemy meeting architecture. A distillation of grace, intellect, and intentionality.
A Sacred Geometry of Taste: The Venue as Vessel
Bar Besuto is the vision of Joel Best, a man who designs experiences the way an architect builds temples: with reverence for space, silence, and sensual ritual. The bar evokes the intimate seclusion of Tokyo’s Ginza whisky sanctuaries but adds a certain antipodean clarity - a precision softened by hospitality. There’s a tension in the room: between light and shadow, sound and silence, movement and stillness. And in that tension, something spiritual is allowed to happen.
Every bottle is handpicked. Every corner is curated. There are no accidents at Besuto - only quiet provocations.
So when Tanaka stepped behind the bar for his masterclass, the result wasn’t a tasting. It was a dialogue. Not just between distiller and guest, but between water and grain, mountain and cask, memory and moment.
Meet the Man from the Mountain: Jota Tanaka
Jota Tanaka is not a celebrity distiller. He is, in fact, the opposite - a man of rare humility who lets the whisky speak in dialects he has spent a lifetime learning. After an MSc in agricultural chemistry in Japan and another in enology from UC Davis, Tanaka apprenticed across continents. He learned wine in Napa, refined bourbon in Kentucky, and eventually returned to Japan to become only the second person to hold the title of Master Blender at Fuji Distillery in 50 years.
He is a craftsman of liminal spaces: between tradition and innovation, East and West, fermentation and philosophy. His role in helping define new labelling standards for Japanese whisky underscores his commitment not just to quality, but to integrity - a word that echoes through every dram.
To share whisky with Tanaka is to sip geological time filtered through humanity.
The Flight: A Vertical Meditation
Each pour on the night carried its own frequency, and together, they formed a kind of liquid fugue - interlocking, evolving, and lingering.
1. Fuji Blended Highball - The Whisper Before the Poem
There is a temptation to overlook the highball. To see it as a prelude rather than a performance. But Tanaka’s Fuji Blended Highball silenced that instinct. It opened with an alpine freshness - crushed mint, green melon skin, and chilled sudachi zest - all carried on the back of micro-carbonated water that did not fizz, but shimmered. The whisky inside, a blend of malt and grain, spoke of balance rather than bravado. Like a haiku on the rocks.
2. Fuji Single Grain - The Sonata in Soft Light
The Fuji Single Grain was a study in elegance. What tickled the nostrils upon approach was reminiscent of pear skin, vanilla pod, acacia honey. But give it a moment, and subtler notes emerged: white tea, sandalwood, and fresh linen in spring rain. It didn’t just taste good - it moved gracefully. Each sip curved into the next like calligraphy. A whisky less about drama than discipline, where restraint itself becomes the performance.
3. Fuji Single Malt - Fire in a Garden
This was the night’s turning point - a whisky of contrast and depth. The Fuji Single Malt opened with stone fruit marmalade, veering into toasted walnut, Kyoto incense, and a whisper of kiln smoke. The mouthfeel was unctuous but clean. There was something theatrical in the way it moved: Noh theatre in a glass. Stillness punctuated by flashes of flame. A gentle reminder that Japanese whisky, while subtle, is never meek.
4. Fuji Single Blended 50th Anniversary - The Philosopher's Blend
The first time this bottle touched Australian lips, it did so with the bearing of a Shinto priest bearing sacred scrolls. A blend made from grain and malt entirely crafted within the same distillery - this was Tanaka’s masterstroke. Caramelised peach, spiced chestnut, burdock root, and aged mirin emerged, bound by a texture that was almost painterly. This dram asked you not just to taste but to listen. To consider. To honour the blend as metaphor: diversity refined into unity.
5. Fuji Single Malt 50th Anniversary - Amber-Hued Reverie
The last dram arrived like a whispered farewell and a lingering refrain. Notes of simmered plum, sun-kissed raisins, warm cinnamon bark, and the delicate sweetness of cherry blossom sap intertwined into a rich mosaic - both nostalgically familiar and intriguingly fresh. This whisky tells its story not in years, but in textured layers, each flavor unfolding like a half-remembered dream from childhood. Its finish trails on with a salty kiss, a gentle bitterness - as if the spirit itself quietly acknowledged that it had finally found its listener.
More Than the Sum: When Joel Meets Jota
There’s something profoundly satisfying when two creative philosophies meet - not to compete, but to complement. Joel Best’s vision of Bar Besuto as a quiet resistance to loud hospitality found a perfect mirror in Jota Tanaka’s meditative approach to distilling. Both men deal in ritual and rhythm, in the alchemy of small details. Together, they created an evening where each pour felt like a chapter, each silence like punctuation.
It was not whisky tasting. It was liquid storytelling. A cultural osmosis between East and West, between stillness and movement, between craftsmanship and atmosphere.
The Takeaway: Whisky as Pilgrimage
We live in a time where whisky is too often sold as a product, as a proof count, as a trophy for those chasing age statements and rarity. But this night was a quiet rebuke to all that. At Bar Besuto, guided by Joel Best’s hospitality and Jota Tanaka’s eloquence, whisky became what it always should have been:
A way of connecting past and present, mountain and mind, spirit and soil.
So, if you find yourself in Sydney and you hear a whisper down a laneway - follow it.
Step into the darkness. Sit down. Let the pour speak.
You won’t leave the same.
Kanpai.
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Words by AW.
