Our Whisky Canada Range

The history of whiskey in Japan is relatively young. Before the crucial contact with Scottish distilleries could take place, Japan had to abandon its self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world.

It wasn't until 1853, after the arrival of American warships in Tokyo, that international trade resumed. Along with the ships came a barrel of whiskey to Japan. The Japanese enjoyed the foreign spirit, but no one knew how to produce it.

The necessary knowledge only reached Japan several decades later when the young chemist Masataka Taketsuru went to Glasgow as a student in 1918. In the Scottish distilleries, he learned the manufacturing process and returned to his home country with extensive notes.

The new knowledge was utilized by the wine merchant Shinjiro Torii, who had a business interest in whiskey production. The collaboration with Masataka Taketsuru led to the formation of Suntory, which remains the most well-known Japanese whiskey producer to this day.

In 1923, Shinjiro Torii opened the first Japanese distillery: Yamazaki. The location was carefully chosen on the outskirts of Kyoto because the region's spring water has exceptional quality. The climatic conditions in this area are also highly favorable for whiskey maturation.

In 1934, the paths of the whiskey pioneers diverged. Masataka Taketsuru founded his own company, Nikka, with a distillery in Yoichi. He selected the northern island of Hokkaido as the location because he believed the climate and landscape resembled the Scottish Highlands. Over the following decades, the Japanese whiskey industry established itself and began to conquer the world market.