The entrance to the temple is covered by a nice canopy. There's a gentle slope from the road coming in, and it feels like you're entering somewhere when you walk in. In Japan, for shrines and temples, it's location, location, location.

The temple itself isn't all that big. It's basically a single room building with some cubby holes in the back of it.

Of course not everything is beautiful. Storage sheds and the like are needed for upkeep of the place.

The grounds of the shrine aren't so big, but there are some landscaped areas. This small Buddha sits in the corner, left of the entrance. It looks like it might have been a pool or fountain at some point.

As you decend into the cave, you'll see lots of stalagtites and heavy machinery to transport awamori to the entrance. The staircase is narrow, wet and rickety. The first thing you notice is an immediate temperature drop. The cave is used because it has a fairly constant temperature all year long.

The front half of the cave has dozens of vats of awamori. They started producing awamori here around 1950, so the techniques are not traditional.

Numbered bins hold thousands of bottles. The specialty is kusu, aged awamori, which needs to sit for three years or more, and gets a smooth taste.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the process, but these bottles have names on them. People can buy a bottle and have it aged, to celebrate a birth or some such event.

Every inch of space is used, every corner has a rack tucked into it. The whole of the cave is used either for distilling or storage.

It takes about 15 minutes to make it to the back of the cave, non-stop alcohol all the way.