Hakushu’s story
Hakushu is the highest and remotest distillery in Japan. It stands over 700 metres (2300 feet) above sea level – for context, this is over twice that of Dalwhinnie, which is the highest in Scotland. The name of Hakushu translates as ‘white sand bank’ in Japanese and refers to the white sand and stones that line the small streams and rivers in the local area. They produce four styles of whisky at Hakushu from unpeated through mild, delicate peat smoke to heavily peated.
The distillery is located in the middle of dense forest in the foothills of Mount Kaikomagatake. It stands on a plateau surrounded by mountains on three sides and this creates a unique and very localised climate, that is perfect for maturing whisky. Hakushu is often known as ‘the forest distillery’. The water used in production is extremely soft and comes from springs whose source is under the granite rich foundations of Mount Kaikomagatake.
Hakushu’s history
The Hakushu distillery was established by the Suntory company in the 1970s. They built a new distillery to help their other facilty, the aging Yamazaki, meet the public demand for Japanese whisky during a boom period for the industry following World War II. Suntory planned to make Hakushu the flagship of their company and build the biggest whisky distillery in the world.
However a combination of planning issues, lack of capital and legal wrangling meant that construction on a scaled down version did not begin until 1970. Production commenced in 1973. Construction then almost immediately began on an extension and this started distilling whisky in 1981. At that time, Hakushu was the largest whisky distillery in the world beating anything Scotland, Ireland or America had to offer.
The older section of the distillery was re-named Hakushu West and the new section as Hakushu East. During the late 1980s, the Japanese whisky industry suffered a major slump and Hakushu West was closed down. Since then only Hakushu East has remained operational and produces 3.5 million litres of whisky a year. Hakushu West has laid dormant for nearly 40 years and is occasionally used for business conferences and concerts.
- How to pronounce Hakushu? ha-koo-shoo
- Country: Japan
- Region: Yamanashi
- Founded: 1973
- Current owners: Suntory Global Spirits
- Production capacity per year: 3.5 million litres
- Stills: 16
- Visitor centre: Yes
Hakushu Distillery
Torihara 2913-1
Hakushu-cho
Koma-gun
Yamanashi-ken
408-0316
tel – +81(0)551 35 2211
Did you know?
Some of Hakushu’s whisky is filtered by passing it through bamboo charcoal after maturation. The locals believe that this purifies the whisky, brings prosperity and keeps evil forces away.
Hakushu
