Nakamura sampling whisky barrelled in 2016, which is the year he founded his distillery in Shizuoka, Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. — Reuters
IN a still fuelled by cedar from nearby forests, Shizuoka Distillery, a leader in Japan’s new wave of independent whiskey makers, crafts its spirits to tap into surging global demand.
This year marks the 100 year anniversary of whiskey making in Japan since the founding of market leader Suntory’s first distillery in Yamazaki in 1923.
And at the century mark, there are now more than 100 licensed distilleries in the country – twice as much as 10 years ago – with each one vying to make its mark in a rapidly expanding market.
The cedar fire – which Shizuoka claims is the world’s only wood fuelled blaze beneath a whiskey still – is one of several novelties these distilleries are using to set themselves apart.
And even though their businesses are small compared to drinks giants like Suntory, their ambitions are world-class.
Taiko Nakamura, 54, was inspired to set up Shizuoka Distillery in 2016 by a trip to Scotland.
“I saw this distillery, and I was amazed that this tiny place in the mountainous countryside was selling whisky across the globe,” he said.
“So I thought it would be fun to make my own whiskey and then have people from all over the world enjoy it.”
The explosion of craft whiskey in Japan follows a boom and bust in the world-class industry.
Long viewed as an inferior copycat of Scotch, Japanese single malts and blended whiskies started racking up international awards around 2008, sparking intense global demand that effectively drank the supply dry by around 2015.
The shortage sent prices into the stratosphere.
A set of 54 bottles from Ichiro’s Malt, a trailblazer in Japanese craft whiskey, sold for US$1.5mil in 2020 at a Hong Kong auction.
Recently, Sotheby’s offered what it claimed was the most valuable collection of Japanese whiskey at auction, headlined by a 52-year old bottle that sold for £300,000.
Major makers Suntory and Nikka, a unit of beer maker Asahi Group, have spent the past decade ramping up capacity and stock of the spirit, which must age for at least three years to qualify as “Japanese whiskey,” under 2021 standards.
(Top) Whisky stills at a distillery are pictured in Shizuoka and (below) a container for the malted barley used to make whisky. — Reuters
Suntory, Japan’s biggest and best-known whiskey maker, recently invested ¥10bil to upgrade its distilleries, including its Yamazaki site.
Chief blender Shinji Fukuyo said he welcomes the new breed of Japanese distillers, and Suntory is willing to give advice to the startups “as long as it contributes to maintaining and improving the quality of Japanese whiskey as a whole”.
Foreign money is flowing into the market too. In 2021, global drinks giant Diageo bought an undisclosed stake in Komasa Kanosuke Distillery, established in 2017 by a maker of traditional shochu liquor.
IJW Whiskey Company, a Kentucky-based company, set up a Japanese subsidiary known as Cedarfield that is building a distillery on the northern island of Hokkaido that would be Japan’s biggest, the Nikkei newspaper reported in March.
A Cedarfield representative declined to comment on the company’s plans.
But with new supply hitting the market and from so many new players, some in the industry have voiced concerns that poor quality product could spoil Japan’s reputation.
“That’s a real fear in the industry,” said Casey Wahl, an American expatriate who founded Kamui Whisky on the remote island of Rishiri in Japan’s extreme northern boundary.
Shizuoka’s Nakamura says makers like him can only respect the process and wait for the results.
“I believe we need to put all our effort into making Japanese whiskey that lives up to the quality of the Japanese whiskies made by our predecessors,” he said. — Reuters
