Nozawa Onsen Distillery (野沢温泉蒸留所), a craft gin producer in the ski-resort village of Nozawa Onsen (野沢温泉) in Nagano Prefecture, has completed its first single malt whisky. The distillery said on September 8, 2026 that the whisky is finished and will go on general sale in November 2026, after a private launch for village residents on September 26.
The distillery is calling the residents-only event a “Village Release.” Every household in Nozawa Onsen will receive a 50ml bottle, and the afternoon includes a performance by the local Dosojin (道祖神) taiko drumming group, tours of the production floor and short speeches by the distillery’s representative, Philip Richards, and the village mayor. The distillery said it wanted the community that has backed it since opening to taste the first whisky before anyone else.
From cannery to distillery
Nozawa Onsen Distillery opened in December 2022 in a renovated building in the village center that had housed a local cannery, a few minutes’ walk from the Oyu (大湯) public bathhouse. It uses Nozawa Onsen’s snowmelt water and local botanicals, and its gin has collected more than 20 international awards; at the 2023 San Francisco World Spirits Competition all four of its gins won gold. Whisky has been maturing alongside the gin in the village’s cool climate, and 2026 brings the first bottling.
The distillery has a tasting bar and gift shop on site, and said it plans to take the whisky “to Japan and then overseas,” though no export dates have been set. It has not published the whisky’s strength, age or price.
Why it matters outside Japan
Nozawa Onsen is one of Japan’s most internationally known ski destinations, busy each winter with visitors from Australia, Britain, Singapore and the United States, and its network of free public hot-spring baths draws travelers year-round. That gives the distillery something most new Japanese whisky makers lack: a steady flow of English-speaking visitors who can walk in and buy a bottle at the source.
For now that is the main way to get it. The November release is a domestic one, and the volume from a first bottling at a small distillery is usually small. Nozawa Onsen joins a growing group of Nagano distilleries — alongside Mars Shinshu and the newer Komoro (小諸) distillery, which released its own debut single malt this year — turning the prefecture’s highland climate into a whisky region. Whether any of it reaches shops in the United States or Europe will depend on how much the distillery can spare once its home market is served.
Source: Nozawa Onsen Distillery via PR TIMES (Japanese).