NIKKA COFFEY MALT WHISKY

The founder of Nikka and the father of Japanese whisky, Masataka Taketsuru came from a long line of sake brewers dating back to 1733. He trained as a chemist and was recruited by the liquor company Settsu Shuzo. With a plan to make Japanese whisky, Settsu Shuzo sent Taketsuru to Scotland in 1918. He enrolled at the University of Glasgow, and became the first Japanese to study the art of making whisky. Armed with Scotland’s distilling knowledge, Taketsuru returned home to discover that the economy had taken a turn for the worse. The project he had undertaken with Settsu Shuzo would never see the light of day. Nevertheless, the determined Taketsuru powered on and found work with the company Kotobukiya. He used what he had learned in Scotland to create a Japanese style of whisky, even adopting the Scottish convention of spelling of whiskey without the “e.” After a 10-year contract with Kotobukiya, Taketsuru built Japan’s northernmost distillery, Yoichi, on the island of Hokkaido, and Nikka was born in 1934. In 1936, Taketsuru began distilling his own whisky at Nikka, and released the first bottle in 1940. Yoichi never ceased production, and still crafts whisky in the traditional manner with pot stills heated by direct coal fire-a, practice that is rare and no longer used in Scotland. Taketsuru’s developed a second distillery in 1969, built on the island of Honshu in the foothills of the Miyagi prefecture. This area is known for its water and is famed for hot springs and waterfalls. The distillery is surrounded by mountains and sandwiched between two freshwater rivers, providing fantastic humidity and air quality conditions for its soft and mild malt.