Beneath the temple, at a constant eighteen degrees, awamori has been ageing since 1988.
Within the temple grounds opens a limestone cave two hundred and seventy metres long that goes down thirty metres below ground, with a chamber thirteen metres high that they call the hall. Down there the temperature never moves from eighteen degrees, and since 1988 bottles of awamori have been ageing there: it was the first cave cellar in Japan. The bottles carry messages from the people who left them there, for a birth or a wedding, to be collected after five, twelve or twenty years.
Shingon temple in Kin, founded in the sixteenth century by the monk Nisshū, who came from Kii Province and was shipwrecked on the coast. The building burned down in 1934 and was rebuilt in 1942. The cave beneath the grounds, called Nisshū-dō, was registered as a monument on 17 February 2026.
ℹ️ The temple can be visited freely. ⚠️ The awamori part is a separate matter, with a different operator: the guided tour starts at 10:00 and at 15:30, plus one at 14:00, and must be booked by phone; the counter is open from 9:00 to 16:00 and is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Nine hundred and ninety yen for adults, eight hundred and eighty for junior high, seven hundred and seventy for elementary school. Tickets are sold at the Tatsu-no-kura shop inside the Chōraku restaurant, on 098-968-8581.
🚉 Kin · 3 min walk
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