The summer release of Akayane’s craft gin HEART is upon us, named Natsu of course. This is a seasonal release out of the Kagoshima distillery that uses potato shochu as a base, which is then given botanicals of juniper berry, ooba (perilla), plum, cucumber, kombu, […]

Hiroshima’s Sakurao Distillery has announced a new Japanese craft gin called Sakurao Gin Hamagou. It’s a limited run of 5000 bottles, and is slated to launch on September 3. There are no details about the new gin yet available, but Hamagou is Japanese for roundleaf […]

2018 hasn’t been the greatest year for Japanese whisky. While we’ve seen some new distilleries pop out new born whiskies, for the established players, things have been pretty gloomy. But finally, there’s some good news out of Shizuoka Prefecture. Kirin has announced that beginning August […]

Gin Live Tokyo 2018 was held for the first time on July 28, 2018! While the scale of the event was somewhat smaller than last year’s Gin-Posium, it was a great opportunity to get caught up on some of the latest offerings from both domestic […]

JR East Japan Hotels has announced they’ll be holding a cocktail competition for the first time, dubbed the “JR East Japan Hotels Creative Cocktail Competition 2018.” It’s taking place on September 24 from 12:30PM to 6PM at Hotel Metropolitan Ikebukuro, the brand’s flagship property. These […]

2018 marks a century since the founder of Nikka Whisky, Masataka Taketsuru, set out on a journey that would alter the history of Japanese whisky. Based primarily on his serialized autobiography originally published in Nikkei in 1968, in Part One of this series we covered his […]

Suntory may be running low on whisky from Yamazaki, but that probably leaves them with plenty of empty casks. They have now announced a new edition of their Yamazaki cask-aged umeshu. This one is not simply aged in Yamazaki casks, but charred Yamazaki casks. That should […]

At the foot of Mt. Fuji lies Kirin’s one and only distillery: the Fuji Gotemba Distillery. It’s an easy daytrip from Tokyo, making this another no-brainer for any fan of Japanese whisky. About Fuji Gotemba Distillery Despite dominating the Japanese beer and chuhai scene, Kirin […]

Is Nikka Whisky readying a third whisky distillery in Kagoshima? That’s the question that’s been floating around my head for the past, I dunno, ten minutes. Japan’s National Tax Agency has issued a whisky distillation license to Nikka Whisky for their Satsuma Tsukasa Distillery. At […]

The latest infographic makes it easy to tell if the “Japanese” whisky you’re drinking is actually Japanese or not! This is a bit of a hot-button topic at the moment — see my recent interview with Dave Broom to find out why. There’s also a […]