This Month on Maction Planet – September 2026

The summer of galavanting continuing as September takes Mac, Founder and Lead Guide of Maction Planet, to Edinburgh, Exeter, Liverpool, Edinburgh again, Islay, Ibiza and Paris!

Featured image: Peter and his daughter Cora bought this badge for me at the start of September 2024 from ‘Game On’, an exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland – a playable history of video games that toured the world. It launched at the Barbican in 2002 and has drawn more than five million visitors in 24 cities. The Edinburgh run, from 29 June to 3 November 2024, covered 50 years from Space Invaders to Minecraft, with extra weight on Scottish studios, Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto among them.

Namco location-tested Pac-Man in Shibuya on 22 May 1980 as Puck-Man. It became Pac-Man for North America because Midway feared vandals would change the P to an F. They should have gone with MACMAN!

While I was in Exeter, Renata, a multi-time Maction Planet guest, sent me this photo of her whisky shelf, where Saburomaru V The Hierophant and VII The Chariot now live. I introduced her to both!

They were distilled in 2021, the V labelled Heavily Peated and bottled in 2024, the VII described as Super Heavily Peated and bottled in 2025. Saburomaru is the whisky arm of Wakatsuru Shuzo, a Toyama sake brewery founded in 1862 that obtained its whisky licence in 1952. Its ZEMON pot stills are cast in Takaoka using temple bell techniques. The cask-strength V The Hierophant was named Best New Japanese Whisky at the 2026 San Francisco World Spirits Competition!

Matcha, matcha everywhere, even at Greggs! The iconic British bakery chain’s iced range launched on 5 February 2026 with plain, vanilla and strawberry. Blueberry and pumpkin spice [with salted caramel drizzle] have now joined.

I spotted this changing trains at Birmingham New Street on my way from Exeter to Liverpool.

Guests who have experienced tea ceremony with Maction Planet will have heard the tea masters bemoan the rising cost of matcha, as the shade-grown tencha leaf behind it is in short supply. Demand is globally-sized now… and the harvest is not.

A conversation in on 10 September at Liverpool Cathedral changed direction when the man I was talking to found out I live in Japan. He had just been speaking to the Japanese sculptor Hiroko Kubo. Born in Hiroshima in 1987, she took her MFA in sculpture at Texas Christian University and builds work from blue sheeting and steel, with ancient myths and idols as her subject. Her Blue Fox sat on the B1 floor of Tokyo Midtown Galleria for Roppongi Art Night 2024 and she has a solo show this year at the Kanazu Forest of Creation in Fukui, Art Document 2026: Blue Sun, Green Moon.

The Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight, on the Wirral, was founded by William Hesketh Lever, the Sunlight Soap magnate, in memory of his wife Elizabeth, and opened in 1922. It is known for its world-class collections of Pre-Raphaelites and Wedgwood jasperware.

As soon as I saw this assortment in the shop, you know it caught my eye! Merch featuring Hokusai’s Great Wave, which dates from 1831, sits next to items featuring works by Monet and Van Gogh, both collectors of Japanese prints!

After Liverpool is was on to Edinburgh to complete a Diploma in Single Malt Whisky with the Edinburgh Whisky Academy (EWA). My course included a distillery visit, so off we went to the Holyrood Distillery! It opened on 30 July 2019 as Edinburgh’s first new whisky distillery in nearly a century. This bottle is its World Whisky Day 2022 new make, fermented for 108 hours with Whitelabs Sake Yeast No. 7 and bottled at 60%. Distiller Conor O’Keeffe took his cue from Masataka Taketsuru’s notebooks!

The minute I pass my exam, it was off to Islay, the spiritual home of peated whisky. Suntory Global Spirits own two distilleries there – Laphroig and Bowmore. On my final day on the island I got to visit both. First up was Laphroig where I was lucky enough to meet George Campbell, the distillery manager. An Islay native, he started his whisky career here as a tour guide at 21. He went on to Diageo, William Grant & Sons and Mighty Craft in Australia, then came home to run the distillery from 1 October 2024.

This photo has a lot going on. I’m in Bowmore’s legendary No. 1 Vaults with Duncan, Islay brand ambassador for Suntory Global Spirits. Founded in 1779, Bowmore is the oldest distillery on Islay. The vaults sit below sea level, with the sea wall on Loch Indaal forming one side. Suntory has owned Bowmore since 1994, and the cask in front of us is Mizunara, Japanese oak, sent over from Yamazaki. My glass holds sherry cask whisky, drawn straight from the cask with a valinch, which I… err… valinched!

I headed from Islay to Ibiza via stops in Livingston and London. This photo, take at Edinburgh Airport on the mornign on 19 September, was the first time I have held the reissued Hibiki 12 in situ (i.e. duty free). The original arrived in 2009 and was retired in 2015, remembered for a compenent aged in umeshu casks, the Japanese plum liqueur. The new version is a travel retail exclusive which debuted at Dubai Duty Free in May 2026 and reached other airports from 1 June. Chief blender Shinji Fukuyo has dropped the umeshu, building it from Yamazaki, Hakushu and Chita whiskies aged in American, Spanish and Mizunara oak. The box draws on kacho fugetsu, the classical theme of flowers, birds, wind and moon.

IBIZA! I had just discovered that the drinks vouchers in my Balcony VIP package stretched to Yamazaki 12 at Paradiso, the cocktail bar inside Pacha Ibiza, an offshoot of the Barcelona original named World’s Best Bar in 2022. On the decks was Solomun +1, his Sunday residency, with Kettama as the guest. Pacha opened in 1973 and Yamazaki in 1923. Two institutions. One happy Mac!

Ibiza is not just partying! Up in Dalt Vila, the Museu d’Art Contemporani d’Eivissa was founded in 1969, making it one of Spain’s oldest contemporary art museums. Part of it sits over Punic houses from the fourth century BC, visible through a glass floor. The surpriingly extensive collection includes work from Ibizagràfic, the island’s international biennial of graphic art. Portrait of a girl, a 1976 screenprint by Koyu Aoyama, born in Japan in 1938, was shown at Ibizagràfic ’78.

Craving ramen on my birthday, I found Daruma Ramen, an independent shop in Ibiza Town. It bills itself as the island’s first ramen restaurant. I was pointed to the miso, the house special. Solid, if a little light on the umami. I was more impressed with the décor.

I flew form Ibiza to Paris, mainly for Whisky Live Paris 2026. On the Sunday I got roped in with Teddy Joseph, Suntory Global Spirits’ global brand ambassador for Bowmore and Laphroaig, and Serge Valentin of Whiskyfun to make a tasting video. Serge has been publishing tasting notes since 2002 and is one of the most respected independent voices in whisky. The bottle in question: Laphroaig’s The Wall Collection: Rope Edition, a 39-year-old matured in oloroso hogsheads and finished in PX butts. Only 200 bottles exist, each hand-painted by Laura Carlin with the tarred ropes of the puffer boats that once brought sherry casks to Islay, they come in at £4,950 a bottle.

Here I am with James Bowker, Global Advocacy Manager for The House of Suntory. James hosted me for a tasting of this line-up, plus some exclusive components of the bottle in my hand: Yamazaki Refill Spanish Oak, a new release distilled in 2014 and 2015 and bottled in 2026, which hits shelves in November 2026!

James invited me at an exclusive Suntory party at Notre Dame Music Bar in Paris’s 11th arrondissement. Here I am between two legends – Raffaele Di Monaco and Christophe Davoine, Suntory Brand Ambassadors for the UK and France respectively. The venue is an audiophile bar in the mould of Japan’s listening bars, built around a wall of vinyl, a McIntosh amplifier, 1980s JBL speakers and two Garrard turntables once used by the BBC!

The Japanese whisky round table on the Monday of Whisky Live Paris, the trade day, saw a LARGE announcement on geographical indication status. Left to right: whisky writer Dave Broom; Shinji Fukuyo, Suntory’s fifth-generation chief blender; Hiromi Ozaki, Nikka’s chief blender until 2025; Jota Tanaka, master blender at Kirin’s Fuji Gotemba Distillery; Yumi Yoshikawa, Chibchi global brand ambassador; Yoshitsugu Komasa, founder of Kanosuke; and Tatsuro Kusano of Mars Tsunuki. Kanpai to that!

Cocktail Street, in its tenth year at Whisky Live Paris, where Nikka recreated Martiny’s, the Japanese-style New York bar, with its co-founder Takuma Watanabe behind the counter. A Tokyo native and former head bartender at Angel’s Share, he won this year’s Altos Bartenders’ Bartender Award from The World’s 50 Best Bars. The sessions were fully booked all day every day, but Raphaël Cristini, Nikka’s brand ambassador for EMEA and a fan of Kanpai Planet, squeezed me in VIP-style! I had the Melon Cream Soda, built on Taketsuru Pure Malt, and the Tea Ceremony. Very much on brand.

Kodawari Ramen Yokocho on Rue Mazarine in Saint-Germain-des-Prés is a Michelin-listed ramen-ya dressed as a Tokyo back alley, with lanterns, mock shopfronts and a soundtrack of street noise. Kodawari means an obsessive attention to detail, and it shows: the noodles are made in-house and the broths start with free-range French chicken. I had the shio paitan, a creamy chicken broth seasoned with salt. A fitting last meal to end 8 weeks away!

BTW, No new Kanpai Planet video this month – I dropped two last month – but there should be one coming soon!

Maction Planet runs bespoke Private Tours and Experiences in Tokyo, and beyond. To book yours, or to purchase a gift card, contact us at info@mactionplanet.com

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