The SHIMODA Whisky Fest 2026 (SHIMODAウイスキーフェス) runs on October 24 and 25 in Shimoda (下田), the port town at the tip of the Izu Peninsula that promotes itself as the place where Japanese people first drank whisky. The local news site Izu Shimoda Keizai Shimbun (伊豆下田経済新聞) reported on October 21 that the fourth edition will bring Japanese and imported whiskies, an exhibit on the town’s whisky history, and a new program that lets visitors sink their own bottle in the sea off Shimoda for a year. For anyone already traveling in the Tokyo and Mt. Fuji area this weekend, it is one of the few whisky events in Japan where the history is as much the point as the pour.
The festival takes place in the small hall of the Shimoda City Civic Cultural Hall (下田市民文化会館) and the plaza around it, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both days. Entry to the tasting hall costs 2,000 yen per day, paid in cash at the door. Tasting booths will pour a range of Japanese and international whiskies, and a local sushi restaurant will serve sushi inside the venue as a pairing. Around ten food stalls, mostly food trucks, will set up in the outdoor area, which is free to enter.
Perry, Ryosenji and a bottle under the sea
The festival’s identity rests on 1854. When Commodore Matthew Perry’s squadron arrived in Shimoda after the Treaty of Kanagawa opened the port, records describe the Americans bringing whisky ashore, serving it to shogunate officials and drinking it at Ryosenji (了仙寺), the temple used as a meeting place. Shimoda bases its “first taste” claim on those accounts. Other histories point to Perry’s first visit to Uraga in 1853, when officials were entertained aboard his ships, so the title is better read as a local tradition than a settled fact. Ryosenji is cooperating on this year’s photo exhibition on whisky history and culture.
The event itself is young. It was first held in 2023, timed to the centenary of Japanese whisky production that began with the founding of Suntory’s Yamazaki distillery in 1923. This year’s edition returns to the civic hall in the town center, which also hosted it last year.
The new element for 2026 is undersea aging. Organizers have already been maturing whisky in the waters off Shimoda, and this year they are opening the program to the public. Visitors can register at the door and hand over a bottle of their own for a fee of 5,000 yen per bottle. The bottles will be sunk in November 2026, raised in October 2027, and shipped back to participants.
Why this matters
Shimoda has no whisky distillery, and that is exactly what makes the festival interesting. Japan’s whisky boom has mostly been told through producers: the big houses, and the more than 100 craft distilleries that have opened in the last decade (see our full list of Japanese distilleries). Shimoda is building a whisky identity out of history and setting instead, using the Perry story as its hook. It is the same tourism logic that drives newer projects like Fugaku distillery near Mt. Fuji, which is designing itself as a destination before it has released a single bottle.
The undersea program also fits a wider pattern. Sea-aged sake, wine and spirits have become a popular project for Japanese coastal towns, because they turn a local feature into a story and a reason to come back. It is worth being clear about what a year under the sea does and does not do. Whisky in a sealed glass bottle does not interact with oak the way it does in a cask, so it is not “aging” in the legal sense that defines Japanese whisky. Any change comes from temperature, pressure and movement, and producers’ claims about its effect have not been independently tested. As a souvenir with a story, it works; as a way to make a whisky older, it does not.
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For readers outside Japan
This is an event for people who are in Japan this weekend. Shimoda is reachable from Tokyo by the JR limited express Odoriko (踊り子), which runs through to Izukyu-Shimoda Station; allow around three hours each way, so it works as a long day trip or an overnight stay. Bring cash for the 2,000 yen entry. The event is organized locally and its materials are in Japanese, so expect limited English at the booths.
Think twice before signing up for the undersea program as an overseas visitor. The organizers say the bottles will be shipped to participants after they come up in October 2027, but they have not said whether international addresses are accepted. Shipping spirits from Japan is restricted for many destinations, including the US, so ask at the registration desk before handing over a bottle.
If you cannot make it to Izu, the same prefecture offers two distilleries worth building a trip around: the craft Shizuoka distillery (静岡蒸溜所) in the hills above Shizuoka City, and Kirin’s Fuji Gotemba distillery at the foot of Mt. Fuji. For larger tastings in the capital, our report on Whisky Festival 2026 in Tokyo covers one of the city’s major annual events, and our Tokyo shopping guide covers where to buy bottles to take home.
Source: Izu Shimoda Keizai Shimbun (Japanese)