Yakoboku

Opened in 2020, Yakoboku feels less like a cocktail bar and more like a dream conjured after dark. Housed in a 150-year-old former ryokan, its wooden beams and earthen floors cradle a space that hums with quiet purpose. Behind the counter, Shinya Koba—2021 Diageo World Class Japan champion—crafts cocktails that taste like stories whispered by the land.

He builds from what Kumamoto gives him: fragrant fruit, mountain herbs, local shochu and whiskey. The Yakoboku cocktail mirrors its namesake flower, blooming only at night with the perfume of jasmine and apple. The Phoenix Martini captures the region’s vines in liquid light, while the Kyushu Old Fashioned, scented with cypress and haze-tree wax, brings the forest indoors.

In spring and autumn, guests can sit on the earthen terrace, the night breeze carrying the faint scent of citrus and cedar. And for those who linger, Amakusa-made bonbon chocolates from Cacao 326 offer a perfect finale, proof that craft and nature can coexist in complete harmony.

Tatler Tip

Ask for one of the Imagination Cocktails, inspired by Kumamoto’s abstract artists. The ingredients are never revealed—it’s all about trusting the bartender, and the night.