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2025 Expo Osaka : Visitors Enjoy Opportunity to Drink Alcoholic Beverages from Around the World

The Yomiuri Shimbun
A server pours a glass of Mliko, a style of beer that is mainly foam, in the Czechia Pavilion in Konohana Ward, Osaka.

By Fumiya Matsuda / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

16:20 JST, June 15, 2025

OSAKA — The 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo offers many attractions, with one of them being the opportunity to drink various alcoholic beverages from overseas.

One Japanese sake brewery has even begun selling a drink that it made in collaboration with another country’s pavilion to help boost the number of visitors to the Expo.

In the Czechia Pavilion’s restaurant, visitors can drink Pilsner Urquell, a beer from the Czech Republic, that can be poured in three different ways. Each drink has a different amount of foam, and the manner of enjoying the drink is particular to the country. One glass of the beer is priced at ¥1,450 including tax.

Mliko has the least amount of beer and is the heaviest on foam.

“Even though my mouth was full of foam, it was sweet and tasty,” said Yu Shiotani, 26, a public servant from Kobe who visited the pavilion to drink the Mliko beer.

From 6 p.m. to 7 p.m only, visitors at the Peru Pavilion can try a free Pisco sour cocktail. Pisco is a distilled sprit made from grapes. The cocktail’s special feature is the floating meringue covering the top.

“The taste and aroma are good, and they aren’t things I can experience in Japan,” commented Takashi Morikawa, 70, from Kyoto City after trying the cocktail. “This Expo is a must-go for people who love drinking.”

Courtesy of Asahi Shuzo Co.
A bottle of special edition “Dassai — Composing the Future” that was produced with Austria.

Asahi Shuzo Co., a Japanese sake brewery, developed a special edition drink with Austria to be served at the Expo.

The brewery, based in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, has sold a special edition of its Dassai sake, named “Dassai — Composing the Future” in the Austria Pavilion since May 22.

A 720-milliliter bottle of the sake is priced at ¥8,000 including tax.

Harald Mahrer, president of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, became fond of Dassai when he drank it at a sushi restaurant in Austria, according to Asahi Shuzo. He then proposed some form of joint project.

Recorded concert performances of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra were played next to the tanks brewing the sake.

“The two countries are bridged through sake brewing,” said a company official, about his expectations. “It may also create a good change in the taste [of the sake].”