Massan: From Glasgow to Yoichi Distillery

The drama opens its backstory in Scotland, where Masaharu studies whisky making and meets a local woman, Ellie. They marry in 1920. The real man behind him, Masataka Taketsuru, studied organic chemistry at the University of Glasgow. For budget reasons, Massan never filmed in Scotland with its actors. The pin marks the university where Taketsuru studied.

Location precision: The drama names Glasgow but no exact spot; the pin marks the University of Glasgow where Taketsuru really studied.

Back in Japan, Masaharu takes Ellie to his family home in Hiroshima. His mother is fiercely against a foreign marriage, while his father quietly hides how much he wishes his son would take over the family sake brewery, Kameyama Shuzo. It is a fictional name: the real Taketsuru was born in Takehara into a sake-brewing family, Taketsuru Shuzo. The pin marks the town of Takehara, not a single house.

Location precision: The drama gives no exact address; the pin marks the town of Takehara, home of the real Taketsuru family.

In Osaka, Masaharu and Ellie begin married life, hoping to start making whisky at his old employer, the sake company Sumiyoshi Shuzo. In real life, Rita Taketsuru lived for a while in Osaka after arriving in Japan and worked as an English teacher at Tezukayama Gakuin University. The drama sets this stretch in Sumiyoshi, a district of the city.

Location precision: The drama names the Sumiyoshi area but no exact address; the pin marks central Osaka.

Masaharu inspects the planned site at Yamazaki and decides the surroundings suit whisky. Massan places the plant in Shimamoto and shows it finished. In real life the Yamazaki Distillery was opened in 1923 by Shinjirō Torii as Japan's first malt whisky distillery, and Taketsuru, whom Torii hired for the job, became its factory director in 1924.

Visitor guidance: The distillery is in Shimamoto, Osaka.

Contains major story spoilers: this is where Massan ends. Masaharu and Ellie arrive in Yoichi, Hokkaido. The series closes at a 1971 ceremony here, and he visits Ellie's grave on the factory grounds. The drama filmed at the real Yoichi Distillery, opened in 1934 by Taketsuru, who chose the town for a climate like Scotland's. Today the site also holds Rita House, a designated cultural property.

Visitor guidance: Nikka's Yoichi Distillery in Hokkaido; Rita House is on the grounds.