What the Journey Taught Me: Starting February

2026.10.05

In short: a short essay at the start of February 2026. For the first time since founding the bar, owner Mika Tanimoto closed Bar Little Happiness completely for 10 days to travel — and realised that everyone holds different cards, and each is a one-and-only right answer.

In January, for the first time since founding the bar, I “closed the bar completely” for 10 days and went travelling.

I had travelled before, but I always left the bar in someone’s hands, and the lights never went out.

“I shouldn’t close the bar unless there’s some meaningful reason.”

Ever since I opened the bar, I may have been binding myself with that thought.

Maybe, lacking confidence, I was trying to make up for it by doing overwhelmingly more than others.

Maybe it was a breakwater so my staff wouldn’t complain.

Fitting myself into the frame of what the world calls “correct” was also armour to deflect criticism from outside.

But as my views on business, on life, and on death changed, I deliberately let go of that “correct answer.”

Simply moving in the direction my heart moves.

Going where I want to go, and meeting the people I want to meet.

Not cramming in plans, and letting myself go with the flow of the moment.

A trip where I gave myself over to that kind of pure, childlike motivation.

The scenery and the words of the people I met that way soaked into my heart far more deeply and vividly than when I moved in search of the “correct answer.”

Whisky, rum, and the business of a bar.

Seeing them at a different resolution from before gave me new excitement and inspiration.

People who push forward on the path they believe in — not by society’s yardstick — faster and more purely than anyone.

What lay behind them was never simply “because they were blessed with a good family or environment.”

However strong one’s business capital or position may be, there are not many people who can use it as a weapon to refine their ideals into reality with such passion and speed.

Facing that overwhelming reality, along with even greater respect, an answer dropped into place inside me.

“Where we are placed, and the cards we hold, are different for each of us to begin with.

And every one of them is a one-and-only right answer.”

I thought I understood that in words, but I felt as if I heard it click into place in my heart.

There was no need to fit myself to an outside “correct answer” or someone else’s yardstick.

I came to feel that the fact that “our foundations are different” is not something to compete with others over, but an absolute condition for pursuing the purity that only I can achieve in my own place.

This trip was time for me to realise something that important.

To everyone who waited for us while we were closed:

thank you so much.

“Both whisky and rum taste even better when you touch the feelings of the people who make them.”

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

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