You can now look for the JSLMA Japanese Whisky logo on your bottles

A year ago we reported on the Japan Spirits & Liqueurs Makers Association’s (JSLMA) three-pronged plan to codify and protect the term “Japanese Whisky.” They’ve now implemented one of the three prongs: as of April 1, 2026, JSLMA members can now feature the organization’s Japanese Whisky logo on their bottle labels.

The first such JSLMA member to announce usage of the logo is Sakurao, who issued a press release to that effect on April 1.

I had some questions though — why are we hearing about the usage of the logo from only Sakurao? Did they jump the gun here?

Luckily I know some folks from Sakurao–you might remember I wrote an article for Mazda Stories about the distillery–and I crossed paths with them at a whisky event this past weekend. So I put the questions to them directly: was this move made with the blessing of the JSLMA? How come we haven’t heard something similar from other JSLMA members?

It turns out the JSLMA has indeed implemented a system for usage of the logo on labels. Sakurao is simply the first member to make this kind of change because all of their current lineup of whiskies meet the JSLMA standard for Japanese whisky. Other members will be implementing the logo “soon” — rumor has it Nagahama is next.

Only time will tell how effective this logo is at communicating the conformity of a given bottle to JSLMA’s Japanese whisky standard. The reality is that not all makers of genuine Japanese whisky are JSLMA members, while only members can use the logo. I suspect that, for the time being, there will still be some “false negatives” out there — cases where the bottle is in fact genuine Japanese whisky, but doesn’t have the logo on the label. The only way to solve cases like this might be an actual law, which as we know might still be a ways off.