The Ghostly Outline of a Shadow — Tracing the Footsteps of Whiskey Near-Legend Jokichi Takamine
as a delegate to the 1884 World Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans, where he met his future wife, Caroline Hitch, an 18-year-old debutante, at a party. Because Takamine spoke English and carried himself in a dignified way, “the press took him as royalty,” Lyman explains, noting that Takamine’s knowledge and temperament “made for easy entrée into polite society.” When he returned to Japan, he was tapped to lead the Japanese Bureau of Patents and Trademarks; patenting many of his discoveries would become part of his business model (and legacy) throughout his life. Then, he took a leave to establish Asia’s first superphosphate factory, which is where he made his fortune, enabling him to marry Caroline in 1887. His first client: a U.S.