I don't recall who wrote the line "If Venice is built on water, Tokyo is built on alcohol," but the author was spot on. Its not only the capital, but the entire country — from the breweries of northern Hokkaido to the tiny distillery I made a thirsty visit to on Hateruma-jima, Japan's most southerly island — that engages in a keen appreciation of drinking. If Ireland has a pub on every street corner, as they say, Japan has a watering hole wherever people congregate.
The Japanese take their drinking seriously. This is a country that makes a good deal more than fermented cocoa leaf and banana rum. If quality and diversity are the sine qua non of a highly advanced, urbane society, the book's contention that Japan offers the world's finest drinking milieu is persuasively supported.
English journalist, Chris Bunting, brings some intriguing factuality to his subject. During the prohibition years in America, for example, we learn that Japan was able to import cheap, secondhand equipment from disabled U.S. breweries and wineries. Contrary to my belief that the sweet potato came to Japan via Dutch ships from Batavia, the writer sets the record straight, telling us that the vegetable, an essential ingredient of shochu, was first planted in Kyushu by the Englishman Richard Cocks in 1615. And did you know that the famously prickly and particular existentialist, Jean-Paul-Sartre, was an admirer of Japanese whisky?