Every Encounter Is Meant to Be: Welcome to the World of Rum & Whisky

2026.10.05

In short: a short year-end essay (December 2025) from Mika Tanimoto, owner of Bar Little Happiness, a whisky and rum bar in Hiroshima, on why choosing a glass from the back bar is never just chance — every bottle has travelled for years to meet you, and the right one becomes a “destined encounter.”

“If I hadn’t met that glass back then…”

Don’t we all have nights when we look back like that?

Sitting at the bar counter, you choose tonight’s drink from the many bottles lined up on the back bar.

At first glance, it may look like chance,

but in fact, it may be a “destined encounter” — exactly what you need right now.

Whiskies and rums that spent decades in faraway lands,

simply waiting for the day someone would find them.

Feelings sealed inside an amber liquid.

Wordless stories polished inside the cask.

After a long journey, going round and round, that bottle is now

right in front of you, on the counter at Little Happiness.

I think that is already a kind of “miracle.”

There are nights when you need the powerful kick of peat,

nights when you want to be wrapped in the gentle, deep sweetness of rum,

and nights when you want to enjoy an even wilder rum.

When that one glass fits your heart perfectly,

the world of Rum & Whisky gives you something more than just “a drink.”

It might be energy for tomorrow, or a little space to forgive yourself.

2025 is nearly over.

Why not come and find the “destined encounter” waiting for you, at the end of this year?

Take one step through the door, and you are at the entrance to the extraordinary.

I hope you can spend a calm night that gently unwinds the self that has worked so hard.

---

Thank you so much for coming to Little Happiness this year.

Here’s to your encounter with your “destined glass” 🥃

Every encounter is meant to be. Welcome to the world of Rum&Whisky.