In 1918, Masataka Taketsuru, the “Father of Japanese Whisky,” journeyed to Scotland, where he learnt the secrets of whisky-making and met his future wife, Rita. He studied chemistry during the day and interned at distilleries during his downtime, learning the ins and outs of scotch whiskey making. In 1934, he founded Nikka Whisky and opened their first distillery in Yoichi, Hokkaido. 

Years later, in 1969, Taketsuru ventured to Northern Honshū to build the Miyagikyo distillery near Sendai. Taketsuru’s spirit continues to live on through the Nikka Whisky team, who continue to release innovative bottlings while remaining true to Taketsuru’s philosophy and his quest for excellence. To date, their whiskies have won multiple Best In Category awards and are one of the top Japanese spirit producers across Canada.

For more information on the Labelling Standards of Japanese Whisky
and the response from Nikka, please see their site below:

https://www.nikka.com/eng/topics/recent/

The Yoichi Distillery
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Situated in the Yoichi District, Hokkaido

Taketsuru wanted his first distillery to capture the essence of the scotch whiskies he learned to produce in Scotland. This led him to the North Japan island of Hokkaido, which was idyllic for whisky-making and very similar to Scotland’s cold climate. Situated between three mountains in Hokkaido lies the Yoichi Distillery, the birthplace of the Nikka Whisky brand and its first whisky production. Known for its smoky, slightly peaty characteristic, the Yoichi distillery uses traditional pot stills, three of which are still coal-fired, in the production of their excellent whiskies. The Yoichi 10 yr old single malt was the first Japanese whisky to win Best Single Malt in the World for its category at the World Whiskies Awards.

The Miyagikyo Distillery
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Situated in the Miyagi Prefecture, Sendai

The Miyagikyo Distillery was the second distillery to open for Nikka Whisky in 1969. In contrast to Yoichi, this distillery is situated at higher altitude and inland in a pristine forest setting. At this second distillery, Nikka produces malts with elegance and fruity characteristics. This allowed Taketsuru to create innovative and creative blended malt whiskies when pairing them with the heavier Yoichi malts. Miyagikyo is home to Nikka’s two Coffey Stills that produce all of Nikka’s grain whiskies and white spirits, Gin and Vodka. With the addition of grain whiskies, Nikka has been at the forefront of creating award winning blended whiskies, such as From the Barrel. Recently, Nikka has released their stunning Coffey Gin and expressive Coffey Vodka globally, both based on their Coffey still distillate from this distillery.

The People
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The history of Nikka and Japanese whisky began with Masataka Taketsuru. He learned his whisky-making skills during his 2-year stay in Scotland, where he apprenticed at 3 distilleries. There he learned the art of distillation and mastered blending techniques. He wrote everything down in detail in two notebooks and this invaluable information became the basis of his knowledge and expertise of whisky-making. These two notebooks became the basis of whisky production in Japan during the early years when he was master distiller at Yamazaki Distillery and when he started his own distillery in Yoichi.

In Scotland, he met his wife Rita and after marrying her, brought her back to Japan with him. When Taketsuru decided to open his own distillery, Rita played an important role in helping raise capital for the construction of the distillery by teaching piano and English to children of affluent Japanese citizens. 

Taketsuru passed away in 1979 and today his legacy, creativity and pursuit of excellence have been passed on to master blender Tadashi Sakuma, who oversees the creation of arguably among the world’s best whiskies.