Ian Chang Tasting｜The Night Whisky Was Our Only Common Language
2026.8.15
“Our common language is whisky.”
That was the line the evening began with.
Six hours from Nagano to Hiroshima by shinkansen.
Ian Chang — the man who took Taiwan’s Kavalan to the top of the world, and who now makes whisky at Komoro Distillery — came to Bar Little Happiness, bringing two young blenders of the next generation with him.
I had been looking forward to this so much, so much, far too much!
This series runs across four parts.
In Part 1, I’ll deliberately keep the whisky talk brief, and start instead with how all the connections that made this night possible came together.
It started with a social media post from Ishihara-san of Kanosuke
I first met Ian at the Komoro Festival.
What made me want to go was Ishihara-san of Kanosuke Distillery.
He’d posted that he would be leading a seminar at the festival.
From the edges of his words, you could tell this seminar meant something to him.
Well then, there was no way I wasn’t going to be there for it!
Ian’s own seminar had already sold out, and what I could get was a back-row ticket for the three-distillery cross-talk.
And so I went to the Komoro Festival.
What I felt there, and what I dug into about Komoro Distillery, I’ve put together in a separate post.
→ What the Komoro Festival showed me about Komoro Distillery
I was just one person in the audience. Some days later, it was Ian who reached out to me.
“Would you host a tasting for me at Little Happiness?”
Honestly, I thought it was some kind of prank.
Right up until the day he came to Hiroshima for lunch, half of me still seriously suspected it might be.
He thanked me for saying yes — but nobody on earth turns down an invitation like that.
The tasting was limited to 11 seats.
The moment we announced it, applications poured in, and the seats turned into something close to gold dust.
What made me happiest was how many people from outside the prefecture put their hands up — guests who had come to this bar once, long ago.
People crossing prefecture lines for one night at a small bar in Hiroshima.
Whisky has that kind of power. I felt it again.
To everyone who applied and couldn’t be seated, I’m truly sorry.
I’ve set aside a small gift — just tell me you applied when you next come in.
What connected me when I ran out of money
There’s one thing from all these connections I’ll never forget.
Only a few days before that evening, I was visiting Kavalan Distillery in Taiwan.
Cashless payment there turned out to be less widespread than I’d expected.
The cash I’d exchanged simply wasn’t enough for a taxi.
So close to where I was going, and not enough in my hands…
I was genuinely stuck.
I messaged Ian, and he worried about it enough to check in with me afterwards: did you make it back to your hotel all right?
By then I had fallen in with the people I’d met at Kavalan, and we were out eating together somewhere in Taipei.
“There. That is what it means to say whisky connects people.”
Ian laughed as he said it.
A place I didn’t know, a language I didn’t speak, no money on me.
And still, on the single point of loving whisky, people find each other.
Ian’s teacher, the late Dr. Jim Swan, used to say this:
“Whisky is a kind of lubricant between people. It joins things together smoothly.”
One connection brings along the next.
It has that strange kind of power.
No need to be formal about it
Ian opened the evening with this.
“Tonight, you don’t have to be serious about any of this. Just relax.
Whisky is a drink that connects people.“
That wasn’t just an opening pleasantry.
He handed a gift to every single guest who came, one by one.
A Komoro Distillery pin badge, and a notebook.
A maker who flies all over the world, taking that much care over one night at a small bar in Hiroshima.
Every one of those small things carried who he is.
Titles, nationality, how much you can drink — none of it mattered.
We sat around the same table on nothing but liking whisky.
That common language Ian spoke of — I think everyone felt it in their body that night.
It was a wonderful night
At the end of the evening, a little shyly, Ian told us about a dream of his.
One day he’d like to buy a Volkswagen camper van and drive a full loop around Japan.
The maker who built the best distillery in the world, and that’s the dream he pictures.
Somehow that plainness said everything about the evening.
And he added one last thing.
“If you ever have the time, come to Komoro. I want you to feel the air of the distillery for yourself.“
We finished with one group photo, everyone gathered at Bar Little Happiness.
The moment the camera came out, everyone somehow stiffened up a little.
I was calling out “smile more, everyone!” as I took it — and I think that photo holds the softness of the night exactly as it was.
People with different languages, different birthplaces, different roads behind them,
sharing one night on the single point of loving whisky.
Ian was right.
Whisky connects people.
It was a wonderful night, and it filled me right up.
To everyone who came holding one of those hard-won tickets: thank you, truly.
The makers I champion, sharing a stage
And after the tasting, there was one more stretch of time I won’t forget.
An evening with the master blenders from Sakurao Distillery, here in Hiroshima.
What was actually said, I’ll keep to myself.
Two of the makers I champion, sharing a stage at Bar Little Happiness.
That alone made me happier than I can put down.
For the Sakurao side, Komoro’s new-borns.
For the Komoro side, Sakurao’s whisky.
We pulled out the limited bottles kept here too, and tasted our way across all of them.
Taiwanese, Japanese and English all mixed together, and opinions flew.
A maker I champion with everything I have, and another maker I love just as much.
If these two met and talked, something would come of it.
What that something was, I had no idea.
No idea — but put them in a room together and there would be chemistry.
I was certain of it.
Which is why I wanted so badly to make it happen!!
I asked for schedules to be moved, knowing full well what I was asking.
My deepest thanks to Shibuya-san of Komoro Distillery and Takeuchi-san of Sakurao Distillery, who ran themselves ragged to arrange it.
Makers talking across the language barrier, each holding the other’s glass.
Just getting to watch that happen in front of me filled me up completely.
This too is exactly the kind of connection whisky makes.
From Part 2 onward, I’ll finally turn to the real subject of that night — Komoro’s whisky itself, properly and in detail.
New make that smells of peaches, water that takes fifty years to surface, gentle peat burned at Christmas.
Into the deep world Ian talked us through, one glass at a time.
— The Komoro Distillery / Ian Chang tasting series —
Next → Part 2: Komoro’s new make, and water that takes fifty years to surface
From a tasting evening with Ian Chang of Komoro Distillery. Bar Little Happiness / Mika Tanimoto
Whisky and rum taste better when you know the hearts behind them.
Every encounter is meant to be. Welcome to the world of Rum & Whisky.
📍 Bar Little Happiness
5-14-1F Nagarekawa-cho, Naka-ku, Hiroshima
Mon–Sat: 19:00–24:30 / Sun: until 24:00
(Last entry approx. 1 hour before closing)
Open almost every day of the year
Reservations and enquiries via our official LINE 🥃
🔗 Online shop: https://shop.little-happiness.jp/
【About the author】
Mika Tanimoto — President, Little.m Inc. / owner-bartender
Owner of Bar Little Happiness, a rum and whisky bar in Hiroshima now in its twentieth year.
Since opening in 2006, she has worked as a specialist in passing on what moves her about whisky and rum.
Her knowledge runs across the back bar’s 1,000-plus bottles, from rare and hard-to-find releases to Sakurao, made here in Hiroshima.
• More than one bar: alongside the main bar, she owns and runs a casual sister venue, the Rum & Whisky Highball Bar.
• Online: an online shop sending selected bottles across Japan in small measures.
• Writing: her column, Notes on Whisky and Rum, distilled from twenty years behind the bar.
