Bartender’s travel show about ‘amazing stories and the people behind them’ begins in Japan

In the first episode of television series Mr Lyan’s Taste Trips, the eponymous British bartender goes behind the scenes at the first malt whisky distillery to open in Japan a century ago. The host, whose actual name is Ryan Chetiyawardana, meets Shinji Fukuyo, Suntory chief blender at Yamazaki Distillery in Osaka. He also chats to Hidetsugu Ueno, one of Japan’s best known bartenders, who makes him a White Lady cocktail at his Bar High Five in Tokyo, and visits a convenience store to recommend his pick of RTDs (ready-to-drink cocktails). Chetiyawardana, who has won dozens of bartending awards, owns multiple bars. His Dandelyan establishment, now closed, topped the World’s 50 Best Bars list in 2018. Each 30-plus-minute episode of his travel show is available on the Mr Lyan’s Taste Trips YouTube and Instagram channels and is screened in the United States on ReachTV, the airport TV network that claims a viewership of 50 million. Mr Lyan’s Taste Trips was inspired by the richness of stories to tell about food and drink. In Japan he also tours Nishiki Market in Kyoto, where he samples delicacies such as yuba (soy milk skin) cream croquettes and whole baby octopus with their brains replaced by quail’s eggs. He visits a brewery producing shoyu – Japanese-style soy sauce – where the condiment is made the traditional way in giant cedar vats. He stops by a fruit store, and reveals what he claims is the world’s best pizza – with apologies to Italy and New York – served at a simple restaurant in Meguro City, Tokyo. “We try to highlight these connections to a sense of place – history, geography, defiance, culture – and make them accessible to as many people as possible, and to show the joy that can come when you get to dive into these rich narratives through something delicious,” Chetiyawardana says. The series has been years in the planning; the Mr Lyan team approached many television channels and streaming platforms over the years but was repeatedly turned down. “For a long time people – and not just TV networks – saw the drinks side of the food world as being about booze. This meant that people were loath to give space or airtime to telling these stories, even though they’re about people and place, not what’s in the glass,” he says. “Like in many situations, people boiled the complex world of food down into one facet, and as it pertained to alcohol, they thought it was easier to dismiss it rather than educate around it, even though this only serves to perpetuate the negative sides of the food and drink world.” The Japanese bartending scene has been hugely influential on the world for over 15 years Ryan Chetiyawardana, host of Mr Lyan’s Taste Trips Produced in partnership with ReachTV and travel media production house Ink, the eight-part series tells “stories that relate to everyone – even if you don’t drink alcohol”. Upcoming episodes will see the host visit places including Scotland, Mexico, London and New York. Chetiyawardana chose Japan to begin the series because it has always been his favourite place to visit. He hopes to deepen visitors’ understanding of Japanese culture through the show. “The Japanese bartending scene has been hugely influential on the world for over 15 years, but I think, for a while, people were just mimicking the aesthetics,” he says. “I’m very glad to see that there’s much more care being taken to understand how this stems from their approach to hospitality and their philosophy behind the craft. So I’m hoping people discover how the scene is much more complex than just beautiful barware.” Chetiyawardana, who runs the award-winning bars Seed Library in London, Silver Lyan in Washington in the US, and Super Lyan in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, has no plans to include Hong Kong in the series, but says he “loves the city and would love to include it”, perhaps in a further series. “I’m excited to visit Asia more, and hopefully highlight more of the amazing stories and the people behind them through the show,” he says. “The cocktail scene across the continent is complex, varied and exceptional – much like the cultures are. “For a long time I think people either dismissed it, or lumped it into one, and I’m so glad people are discovering the incredibly diverse, layered, and fantastic ingredients and approaches to hospitality that make up the Asian cocktail and food scene.” At the end of each episode, Chetiyawardana creates a cocktail from some of the ingredients featured in the show. In Japan he creates a whisky cocktail at Virtu Bar at the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi, which he calls the Honshu Highball. He combines Hibiki Harmony blended Japanese whisky with last-season grapes and semi-dried persimmon, leaves this for four hours, then pours it through a tea strainer. He serves the drink layered over ice in a stylish Japanese highball glass with a splash of shoyu, sugar syrup, fino sherry and very cold soda water, topped with bamboo leaf. He also makes an alcohol-free cocktail from cold-brewed tea and a home-made botanical syrup of green cardamom, coriander seeds, dried cherries, honey, chilli and orange and lemon peel. He serves this over a block of ice and tops it with a disc of orange peel and a fresh cherry. “Now it’s kind of presumed that one of the reasons why the Japanese live so long is partly the fermented foods and the connection to nature, but it’s also the fact that they drink a litre of green tea per person, on average, every single day,” he says in the show. “I love non-alcoholic drinks, or booze-less cocktails … So I want to look to some of these powerhouse ingredients. And one of my favourites from Japan was some black loose-leaf tea.” The next instalment of Mr Lyan’s Taste Trips, titled “Unexpected Scotland”, airs on May 28 at 5pm UK time,, and presents Scotland beyond the usual tourist recommendations. Chetiyawardana runs through the different whisky regions in Scotland – Lowland, Highland, Islay, Speyside and Campbeltown – and visits a Singleton distillery and the Lagavulin distillery on Islay, known for the smoky and peaty flavours of its whisky. The episode’s cocktail combines whisky with heather-rich honey and foraged nettle, primrose, dandelion and golden saxifrage, and Chetiyawardana explores whisky bars and eats “Scottish tacos” to get an insight into modern Scottish cooking, with its focus on seasonal and wild foods.

Bartender’s travel show about ‘amazing stories and the people behind them’ begins in Japan

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Mr Lyan’s Taste Trips explores the food and drink scene in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo in its first episode, and host creates a Japanese cocktail

Mr Lyan’s Taste Trips explores the food and drink scene in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo in its first episode, and host creates a Japanese cocktail