Japan Whisky Press

Takazo distillery to release its first single malt

Rows of oak whisky casks resting on wooden racks in a dim maturation warehouse.

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Meiri Shurui (明利酒類), a liquor maker in Mito (水戸), Ibaraki, releases the first single malt from its revived Takazo (高藏) distillery on October 16, 2026. The bottling, called “Takazo the First,” comes from a company that made whisky from 1952 until a fire destroyed the plant in 1959, after which it handed back its whisky licence. Meiri obtained a new whisky-production licence in 2022 and its pot still ran that year for the first time in roughly 60 years.

Every drop of malt spirit in the release was fermented, distilled and matured at Takazo after that 2022 restart, and the distillery describes the key components as three years old, so this is a young whisky. Its core is spirit aged in casks that once held Meiri’s “100 Year Plum Wine” (百年梅酒), the umeshu the company is best known for at home. That plum-wine-cask whisky is vatted with malt matured in bourbon casks and in Pineau des Charentes casks, a fortified-wine cask from the Cognac region. The distillery’s own description is fruit-forward, built around the plum-wine cask with a full vanilla note; we have not tasted it, and the official copy for the cask strength version openly warns of the “alcohol attack” typical of three-year-old malt.

The two bottlings

Two versions go on sale. The standard “Takazo the First” is reduced to 48% ABV, priced at 12,100 yen including tax (about $82 or £61), with 5,800 bottles. A cask strength edition, bottled from the same vatting without added water at 61% ABV, costs 16,500 yen (about $112 or £83) and is limited to 500 bottles. Both are 700ml. On release day, Meiri’s online shop opens sales at 12:00 Japan time and its Bessyunkan (別春館) shop and museum in Mito from 9:30, and the company says its direct allocation is limited.

What Takazo is building

Meiri rebuilt Takazo as a small, hands-on operation rather than restoring the old industrial plant. Its first mashes in 2022 used 400kg of malt per batch. According to the distillery, it pitches about three times the yeast it started with and runs fermentation roughly twice as long, aiming for a fruity new make. Mito sits between the Naka River and Lake Senba, and the distillery pumps its own magnesium-rich groundwater, the same water used for its sake. Since 2023 it has matured spirit in five cask families: bourbon, sherry, rum, mizunara and the plum-wine casks.

Yeast is the company’s real specialty. Meiri developed the Ogawa yeast that the Brewing Society of Japan registered as Kyokai No. 10 in 1977, and it says its sake yeasts are used by around 240 breweries. For whisky it spent about four years developing its own strain, named T310, and began making new make with it in January 2026. That means T310 spirit is not in “the First”; it will only appear in later releases. The company has also backed Sato Malting, which it calls Japan’s largest floor-malting plant, and has started using peated malt from Ibaraki-grown Mikamo Golden barley under what it calls a “local barley” plan, with a separate Ibaraki-focused series to follow. Our explainer on why so little Japanese whisky uses Japanese barley covers why that is unusual, and our guide to peated Japanese whisky explains where most Japanese distillers get their peat.

The young spirit already has a competition record. A one-year-old Takazo new born won gold at Tokyo Whisky & Spirits Competition (TWSC) 2025, a two-year-old bourbon-barrel bottling won silver in the Young Spirit category of the World Whiskies Awards 2026, and the distillery says all three products it entered at TWSC 2026 took gold.

Why this matters

Meiri is not an unfamiliar name abroad, even if the distillery is: its company profile says it exports, and its yeasts are widely used across the sake industry. “Takazo the First” meets the industry’s Japanese whisky standard adopted in 2021, because mashing, fermentation, distillation and maturation all took place in Japan, and at three years it clears the standard’s minimum maturation period rather than being a “new born” spirit. It adds to a steady run of debut single malts from the craft distilleries that opened across Japan after 2015, following first bottlings this year from Komoro (小諸) and Kirishima Yokogawa (霧島横川).

The more interesting point is the house style. Most new Japanese distilleries borrow Scotch cask programmes. Takazo is building its identity on something only a plum-wine maker can supply: casks seasoned with its own umeshu, plus yeast work from a company whose sake yeast is an industry reference. If that combination produces a recognisable style, it is a model other sake and shochu houses moving into whisky could follow. Ibaraki now has two whisky names to watch, with Takazo joining Kiuchi Shuzo’s Nukada distillery up the road in Naka.

For readers outside Japan

No export plan has been announced. Meiri’s online shop states that it delivers only to addresses in Japan, and with 6,300 bottles in total the release will almost certainly stay in the domestic market. Realistic routes are a proxy or forwarding service, a Japan-based specialist retailer that ships abroad, or the secondary market later; our guide to importing Japanese whisky from Japan covers duty and courier rules. If you buy at auction, check the label for “CASK STRENGTH” and 61%, because the two editions share a name. For better-known bottles that are actually stocked abroad, start with our lists of Japanese whisky under $100.

Visiting is the easier option. Bessyunkan is free to enter without booking and is about one taxi meter-fare from Mito Station. Meiri runs a Takazo tasting tour once a month, 14:00 to 16:00, for 5,000 yen and up to 15 people, which includes six cask samples, the yeast laboratory and the warehouse; special “TAKAZO First Day” tours run on October 16 and 17. The booking page is in Japanese and does not mention English guiding, so ask when you reserve. Mito is roughly 70 to 90 minutes from Tokyo by limited express, which makes a combined trip with Nukada practical.

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