OSAKA'S ROGIN

In Moriguchi, Osaka, on a road that has connected two cities for centuries, Seiichiro Tatsumi built a bar that connected two worlds. Osaka's Rogin is a portrait of the man and the bourbon collection that could only exist here. Two worlds. One spirit.

Seiichiro Tatsumi is the proprietor of Rogin's Tavern, a bourbon bar in Osaka approaching its 50th year. For decades he traveled through the American South chasing after rare bottles and something harder to name. A case of 1960s Colonel E.H. Taylor discovered in a Tennessee basement. A 1933 Mt. Vernon Pure Rye from a strip mall in Maryland. He brought them all back to his hometown.

Osaka explains it. A city warm and irreverent and food-obsessed, working-class proud, with alleyways that share the same unhurried grammar as the backroads of America. When Tatsumi got to bourbon country he wasn't discovering something new. He was meeting something familiar.

Tatsumi navigated Kentucky in the 1970s and 80s not because bourbon was universal, but because he already spoke the language. Rogin's Tavern is the proof.

A fever dream of Osaka. A glamour shoot for a whiskey bottle. The camera lingers on what patience looks like: cork dust, the swirl of a pour, light the color of aged oak. Inside Rogin's, warmth. Outside, electricity.

For the audience that made Jiro Dreams of Sushi a phenomenon and keeps Chef's Table running: character-driven documentary, food and drink, global culture, and one man's obsession held for fifty years.

Feature documentary. Principal photography in Osaka, September 2026. Director of photography attached. Expert interviews confirmed.

A distiller at Willett mentioned, almost offhand, the best whiskey he'd ever tasted. A 1960s Colonel E.H. Taylor, in a small bar in Osaka. I couldn't let it go. When I finally found Rogin's, I understood why.

The film ends on the sign. By then, you can read it.

Owen Lang is a musician and filmmaker based in Baltimore. Osaka's Rogin is his first feature.