Meiri Shurui (明利酒類), a liquor maker in Mito (水戸), Ibaraki, will release the first single malt from its revived Takazo (高藏) distillery on October 16, 2026. The bottling, called “Takazo the First,” comes from a site that distilled whisky from 1952 until a factory fire led the company to hand back its license more than 60 years ago. Meiri regained a whisky-production license in September 2022 and resumed distilling the same year.
Every drop of malt spirit in the release was fermented, distilled and matured at Takazo after that 2022 restart, so the whisky is young. 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 describes the result as fruit-forward, with vanilla sweetness and a full, floral body.
Two versions go on sale. The standard “Takazo the First” is bottled at 48% ABV, priced at 12,100 yen (about $82 or £61), with 5,800 bottles. A cask strength edition, bottled without added water at 61% ABV, costs 16,500 yen (about $112 or £83) and is limited to 500 bottles. Both are 700ml.
Meiri rebuilt Takazo as a small, hands-on operation rather than restoring the old industrial plant. Mito sits between the Naka River and Lake Senba, and the distillery draws magnesium-rich groundwater. The company spent about four years developing its own whisky yeast, called T310, which entered production in 2026. It is also backing Sato Malting, described as Japan’s largest floor-malting plant, with a plan to bottle whisky made from Ibaraki-grown, locally malted barley in a later series.
Why this matters beyond Japan
Meiri is not an unfamiliar name abroad, even if the distillery is: its plum wine is widely exported, and its yeast strains are used by other Japanese drinks makers. “Takazo the First” meets the industry’s Japanese whisky standard adopted in 2021, because mashing, fermentation, distillation and maturation all took place in Japan. No export plan has been announced, and with fewer than 6,300 bottles in total the release will almost certainly stay in Japan; specialist retailers and auction sites are the realistic route for buyers overseas. 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). Ibaraki now has two whisky names to watch, with Takazo joining Kiuchi Shuzo’s Nukada distillery up the road in Naka.
Source: Japanese Whisky Dictionary (Japanese)