The Hakushu single malt whisky distillery in Japan was opened by owners Suntory in 1973, fifty years after the founding of sister Japanese whisky distillery Yamazaki. After spending much of its early existence purely as a provider of blend fodder single malt for Suntory’s blends, Hakushu was first launched as a single malt whisky in 1994 and arrived in Europe soon afterwards.

The distillery is located within a forest 700 metres above sea level in the foothills of Mt. Kaikomagatake in the Japanese Southern Alps, where the water quality is extremely high and the cool microclimate is conducive both to distilling with a lot of reflux in the still - providing a light but flavoursome spirit - and to ageing slowly in the Scottish style. 

The combination of Japanese single malt whisky’s precision and meticulousness, Suntory’s dedication to the ‘correct’ old fashioned Scottish methods of distillation and Hakushu’s adventurous, grassy, smoky style has proven to be enormously successful with connoisseurs of Japanese single malt whisky and the distillery today has a legion of fervent fans.