Spell Nagahama backwards and you get Amahagan, the name Nagahama Distillery has chosen for their experiments with blending. We know that they’ve been fiddling around quite a bit with their peat levels at Japan’s smallest whisky distillery, so it looks like they’ve begun trying their […]

Umeshu is often mistranslated as “plum wine.” Plum liquor is a more accurate term. It’s made by letting plums steep inside of a neutral spirit such as korui (multi-distilled) shochu. As there isn’t any actual fermentation or distillation going on when making the umeshu itself, […]

There’s a new Japanese craft gin out since last Friday, dubbed “The Inland Sea Setouchi.” It brings together botanicals from across the various prefectures that surround the renowned Seto Inland Sea. The new gin appears to be some sort of collaboration that involving three separate players in […]

Publisher Shogakukan has announced the release of the ninth entry in “The Ghost Series” of Japanese whisky bottlings: Akashi 2015. The Ghost Series of rare Japanese whiskies was launched by Japanese whisky expert Stefan van Eycken, who is also the editor of nonjatta.com and author of Whisky […]

Nikka’s latest release for the European market is a whisky called Nikka Days, and it’s now available from French whisky powerhouse Le Maison du Whisky. Given that Nikka Days is not available in Japan, it occupies a space similar to that of Suntory’s Toki. Nikka […]

Volume 5 of the Le Papillon Single Cask Japanese Whisky series from Mars Whisky has now been released: P.maacki, common name alpine black swallowtail. Looking at the whisky, we can see it’s slightly over 4 years old, spending its days in Shinshu in American White […]

Today sees the release of not one but two new Japanese craft gins! Akayane continues their quarterly releases of the Craft Gin Heart series. This time the fall and winter editions being released simultaneously, completing the series. The Aki release uses these 6 botanicals: Shimeji […]

The latest whisky out of Kagoshima is Kanosuke New Born, from the new Kanosuke Distillery. As the name indicates, it’s been aged for around 8 months, being distilled only in February of this year. Importantly though, New Born has been aged in American White Oak […]

You may not have heard of the Oenon group but I think it’s pretty safe to call them the Kirkland of Japan. They actually released a Japanese craft gin in March of this year. But I’ve only now come across it, so here we go! […]

Aichi Prefecture-based Fujikei Kyoi Co. Ltd. has announced the release of Single Malt Whisky White Oak Akashi Sake Cask, a 3-year whisky that spends all of its time maturing in American white oak ex-sake casks. You are unlikely to find this one available online in […]