The San Francisco World Spirits Competition is the largest such competition in the world. In past years, we’ve seen several now iconic Japanese whiskies such as Yamazaki 18 and Fuji Gotemba Blender’s Choice get decorated with some of the highest honors. Now another Japanese whisky […]

Paper maker Tokushu Tokai Paper has announced the construction of a whisky distillery in Aoi-ku, Shizuoka, Japan. While the new distillery will share an address with the Shizuoka Distillery, it’s a very, very different location. Tokushu Tokai owns a massive 25,000 hectares of mountain forest […]

In a bizarre twist, Niigata-based personal seal maker Otani has decided to create a whisky distillery in Niigata City. That’s right, a company that makes stamps has decided they want to make Japanese whisky. Up to now, the new whisky distilleries that have popped up […]

As I write this, I’m sitting at Hitachino Brewing Shinagawa. A couple weeks back, we covered a release that many followers of Japanese craft whisky have been waiting for: the first whisky product out of Kiuchi Shuzo’s Nukada Distillery. That product was a canned highball, […]

Around this time last year, I made a guess that the absence of Yamazaki Limited Edition 2018 in Suntory’s Summer Gift Collection meant that there would be no such release. That guess turned out to be accurate. Considering where we are with stocks of brand-name […]

Suntory’s Yamazaki Distillery, the first whisky distillery in Japan, celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2023. As a result, we expect several limited edition releases to come out of the distillery to commemorate the occasion. This is similar to how Nikka announced their Limited Edition 2019 […]

Mere hours after Hakkaisan Brewery announced their construction of a whisky distillery in Hokkaido’s Niseko, Niigata Beer has gone ahead and unveiled their plans for a whisky distillery in Niigata Prefecture. According to Nikkei, this one is will be happening sooner: Niigata Beer is renovating […]

Brace yourselves, as one of Japan’s biggest sake makers is busting into the Japanese whisky scene in a huge way. Hakkaisan Brewery, makers of one of Japan’s most beloved sakes of the same name, has announced they’ll be building a 9900 square meter whisky distillery […]

Tonight we get involved with bottle 2 of 3 in the second series of THE ESSENCE of SUNTORY WHISKY. This time around we have a Yamazaki aged for 9 years in an ex-Montilla wine cask, bottled in 2019 at 55% abv. Montilla Wine Let’s get […]

The other day I happened to come across the second volume of the “THE ESSENCE of SUNTORY WHISKY” series being sold on Amazon JP at retail price. It’s quite odd since they are not supposed to be sold to members of the general public — […]