Yoichi’s story
The Yoichi distillery is the only whisky distillery on the northern island of Hokkaido. The island is roughly the same size in land area as Scotland, has the same population and is said to have the most similar climate than anywhere else in Japan. The distillery is located in the small fishing town of Yoichi, surrounded by mountains on three sides and the sea on the other. Yoichi is regarded as one of the most picturesque distillery in Japan and its proximity to the sea means that its whiskies gain a slightly salty character during maturation – this is said to make it the perfect accompaniment to sushi.
Hokkaido is the only part of Japan to be home to a peat-like substance that could be burned under the malted barley, although most peat is still imported from Scotland. Another difference with this distillery is their use of Japanese oak for maturation. This oak is called mizunara and is much more porous and susceptible to leaking than American or European oak. Therefore, they only partly mature or finish the whisky in mizunara oak so that it imparts its unique flavours.
While Yoichi whisky has always been popular in Japan, it gained worldwide recognition when a version of its 20 years old won the most prestigious prize of ‘Best Single Malt’ at the World Whisky Awards in 2008. This was the first time a Japanese whisky had won such an illustrious award and sparked the world’s current high interest in the product. This led to a boom time for Japanese whisky, which Yoichi struggled to keep up with. This saw the the core range reduced to a single no age statement core product in 2015.
Yoichi’s history
Yoichi was founded in 1934 by legendary Japanese whisky figure Masataka Taketsuru. He decided to leave the Suntory company and the Yamazaki distillery that he helped to establish, and build his own distillery. The site that he selected was on the northern island of Hokkaido – this was his original choice as the site for Yamazaki but he was over ruled by his mentor, Shinjiro Torii. Taketsuru was joined by his wife Rita, who he met in Scotland, and believed the island had the closest environment that he could find to Scotland. He had visited Scotland and studied whisky making techniques for three years before supervising the setting up of Yamazaki. This included spells at Mortlach in Speyside and Lagavulin on Islay.
The original name was Hokkaido distillery and had a capacity of just 150,000 litres per year. Production began in 1936 with their first blended whisky released in 1940. Taketsuru’s Dainipponkaju Company was re-named as Nikka Whisky Distilling Co. Ltd in 1952. The first single malt from the distillery was released as the Hokkaido 12 years old, but not until 1984. Nikka became a subsidiary of the Asahi Brewery Company in 2001 and they re-named the distillery Yoichi. Asahi also took control of Nikka’s other distillery at Sendai and re-named it as Miyagikyo.
- How to pronounce Yoichi? yoh-wee-chee
- Country: Japan
- Region: Hokkaido
- Founded: 1934
- Current owners: Nikka
- Production capacity per year: 2 million litres
- Washbacks: 10
- Stills: 6
- Visitor centre: No
Yoichi Distillery
7-6 Kurokawacho
Yoichimachi
Yoichigun
Hokkaido
046-0003
tel +81 (0)135 23 3111
www.nikka.com/yoichi
Did you know?
Yoichi is the last distillery in the world to have direct coal-fired stills. These used to be commonplace but the penultimate one at Glendronach in Scotland transferred to steam heating in 2005.