The Hanyu whisky distillery in Japan had a troubled and sporadic history: although Hanyu produced some quite outstanding Japanese single malt whisky during its lifetime, the quality of the distillery’s spirit was never appreciated in the domestic market and only found its audience after the Hanyu distillery had been closed and dismantled.

The Hanyu distillery closed its doors in 2000, but thankfully Ichiro Akuto was able to retrieve some of Hanyu’s equipment, including a pot still and, more importantly, he also negotiated the purchase of the last 400 casks of Hanyu single malt whisky. The remaining casks of Hanyu single malt whisky, which nearly ended up being redistilled, have passed into legend.

In 2004, Ichiro Akuto founded a new company called Venture Whisky  and began bottling the preserved casks of Hanyu under the Ichiro’s Malt label. The Card Series Hanyus appeared between 2005 and 2014 and are now some of the most valuable Japanese single malts ever released - a full collection of all 54 bottles (52 Cards and 2 Jokers) was sold for over $1.5m in 2020.