Eigashima’s story
Eigashima is a distillery located near to the city of Kobe. The whisky production forms a small, but increasing, part of their current business. They concentrate on the production of two of Japan’s most popular alcoholic drinks – sake and shochu. The whisky is made using malted barley imported from Ireland and Scotland, and this has a very low level of peat smoke (around 5ppm).
Traditionally, all of the whisky produced at Eigashima has been used in a blend called ‘White Oak’. This blend also includes some American grain whiskey. The inaugural Eigashima single malt was released in 2007, as the low production rate (whisky is distilled for just five months each year, although this is increasing year on year) means little whisky is aged for long enough to be considered for single malt bottling. When the releases happen, the whisky is named as ‘Akashi’.
Eigashima’s history
The distillery was founded by Eigashima Shuzo in 1888 in order to produce sake and shochu. A license to distil whisky was granted in 1919, some four years before Yamazaki began production, but various circumstances prevented Eigashima becoming Japan’s first whisky distillery. In fact, whisky production would not commence for many decades until the company moved in to their new facilities in 1984. This new facility was named White Oak Distillery and it has separate still rooms for sake, shochu and whisky.
The decision was taken to start producing whisky as a result of the boom in the Japanese whisky industry during the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, shortly after opening White Oak, the industry came crashing down in Japan due to a massive hike in the Japanese Liquor Tax. This led to cheaper prices and availability of Scottish and Irish imported whisky.
As a result, they operated the whisky stills for approximately one month every year since the early 1990s. The current rise in popularity of Japanese whisky around the globe has seen production stepped up – it is now approximately five months each year – but it is still much less than many other distilleries in the country.
- How to pronounce Eigashima? egg-gash-ee-ma
- Country: Japan
- Region: Hyogo
- Founded: 1984
- Current owners: Eigashima Shuzo Co. Ltd.
- Production capacity per year: 48,000 litres
- Mash tun: 6,000 litres
- Washbacks: 4
- Stills: 2
- Visitor centre: No
Eigashima Distillery
19 Nishijima
Ookubo-cho
Akashi-shi
674-0065
tel – +81(0)78 946 1001
www.ei-sake.jp
Did you know?
The location of Eigashima’s warehouse is very hot in the summer. This results in the maturing whisky losing 7-8% of volume in the cask every year to evaporation. This compares to only 1-2% in Scotland.