Whisky has been produced in Japan since the late 19th century but the first proper commercial-scale malt whisky distilling commenced with the founding of the country’s oldest distillery, Yamazaki, in 1924.
At that time Shinjiro Torii, the founder of the Kotobukiya company that was later to be renamed Suntory in his honour, was keen to create and market Japanese whisky for Japanese drinkers, so he set about establishing Yamazaki distillery. Torii hired Masataka Taketsuru, who had studied whisky production in Scotland for an abandoned distillery project by rival company Setsu Shuzo, to design the production processes at the distillery and make the whisky.
Masataka Taketsuru fell out with Torii over the location of the distillery and left Kotobukiya at the end of his contract. After ten years of establishing a brilliant whisky-making process at Yamazaki, Taketusuru set up his own Nikka Yoichi distillery as soon as he left Kotobukiya, and the fledgling Japanese whisky industry was born.
The whiskies produced in Japan are very similar in style to Scottish whisky, being largely based upon Taketsuru’s experiences at Scottish distilleries such as Hazelburn and Longmorn. To this day, the malts of Yamazaki and Yoichi are considered to be still quite close in character to some of these older style Scottish malts and are held in great renown around the world.
Other distilleries such as Miyagikyo, Hanyu, Karuizawa and Hakushu would follow in the years and decades ahead, and these too have garnered great praise from whisky lovers around the world. Today, closed Japanese distilleries such as Hanyu and, particularly, Karuizawa have become cult names which command significant prices at auction. The appetite for Japanese whisky has become huge in recent years and shows no sign of slowing down.