It's more than two hours away from Miyazaki Airport by car and train.
Deep in the foothills of Mt. Osuzu is Kuroki Honten's shochu distillery, where the company began making whisky on November 1, 2019. November 1st is "Shochu Day."
What kind of whisky is being made right alongside shochus like "Yamasemi" and "Yamaneko." For the first time in 17 years, I visited Osuzuyama in mid-January.
Text/Photos: Mamoru Tsuchiya
Translation: Whiskey Richard
This article originally appeared in Japanese in Whisky Galore Vol.19 / April 2020.
Barley farming and malting all done in-house
Kuroki Honten is Miyazaki prefecture's historical shochu maker in Takanabe, known for the "Hyakunen no Kodoku" barley shochu. This brand of shochu was famously the choice tipple of then-Crown Prince Naruhito, today's Emperor of Japan.
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Mamoru Tsuchiya is Japan’s foremost whisky critic. He is the Representative Director of the Japan Whisky Research Centre, and was named one of the “World’s Best Five Whisky Writers” by Highland Distillers in 1998. He served as the whisky historian for NHK’s Massan and he has published several books such as The Complete Guide to Single Malt Whisky, Taketsuru’s Life and Whisky, and The Literacy of Whisky. He is the editor of the bimonthly Whisky Galore, Japan’s only print whisky magazine.
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