Ask a whisky drinker in London or Los Angeles what Japanese whisky costs, and Togouchi is usually the surprise: a bottle that looks and tastes far more expensive than its price tag suggests. Part of the reason is where it is made. The core Togouchi range is not distilled in Japan at all — it is blended and matured there, inside a 360-metre disused railway tunnel cut into the mountains of Hiroshima Prefecture. Understanding why a sake and shochu maker ended up ageing whisky in an abandoned rail project explains both the flavour and the label wording that confuses so many first-time buyers.
A sake brewer’s detour into whisky
The company behind Togouchi is Sakurao Brewery and Distillery (晋屏ブルワリーアンドディスティラリー), known for most of its history as Chugoku Jozo (中国醈造). It was founded in 1918 in the Sakurao district of Hatsukaichi, on the edge of Hiroshima, as a producer of sake, shochu, mirin and liqueurs. For decades whisky was not part of the business at all.
That changed in 1990, when the company began producing whisky aimed partly at export markets. Rather than installing pot stills of its own, it took the route several regional Japanese liquor makers used in that era: buying malt whisky from Scotland and grain whisky from Canada, then blending, ageing and bottling it in Japan under its own label. Togouchi went on sale from 2008. It was not until 2018 that the company opened a dedicated pot-still and column-still operation, Sakurao Distillery, giving it the ability to distil malt and grain spirit domestically for the first time. In 2021 the company renamed itself Sakurao Brewery and Distillery, a deliberate signal that it intended to keep brewing and distilling on the same plot of land in Sakurao rather than relocating or diversifying away from drink-making.
That sequence matters for how the brand should be read today. Togouchi was built as an imported-spirit blend long before the company could distil its own whisky, and the two product lines — the older Togouchi blends and the newer Sakurao-distilled single malt — still coexist, aged side by side in the same facilities.
The abandoned railway line that became a whisky warehouse
The most distinctive part of the Togouchi story has nothing to do with distilling. It is a hole in a mountain. In the town of Akiota (安芝太田町), deep in the Chugoku mountains north of Hiroshima city, Japanese National Railways began surveying a new line in the 1930s: the Imafuku Line (今福線), intended to link Kabe Station on the San’yo side with Hamada Station on the San’in coast, on the Sea of Japan side. Construction of a roughly 360-metre test tunnel at Kawate, near Togouchi, was carried out as part of that survey work. War halted the project in 1940, work resumed after the war, and the line was finally abandoned for good in 1980 when Japanese National Railways cancelled it amid the chronic deficits that eventually led to the railway’s privatisation. The Imafuku Line never carried a single train. It is remembered locally as “the phantom railway.”
Chugoku Jozo took over the tunnel and converted it into a storage facility, first for shochu and later for whisky. Rather than building a new climate-controlled warehouse from scratch, the company inherited a structure that already did the job for free: a mountain that had been holed straight through, decades earlier, for a train that never came.
Akiota sits well inland from Hiroshima’s coastal industrial belt, in terrain steep enough that a rail link through it was considered worth drilling a test tunnel for in the first place, and cold enough in winter that the surrounding mountains give the tunnel its stable chill without any mechanical cooling. That geography is the entire reason the site works: a coastal warehouse in Hatsukaichi, where the company is actually based, would need active climate control to hold the same conditions the tunnel provides simply by being buried in rock.
Why the tunnel matters for what is in the bottle
Inside the Togouchi tunnel, the temperature holds at a nearly constant 14–15°C year-round, with humidity commonly cited at around 80%. Both figures are unusually stable compared with the seasonal swings a warehouse at ground level in Hiroshima would experience, and both sit close to what distillers generally consider favourable for slow, even whisky maturation.
The company’s own account of the tunnel is less romantic than most marketing copy. In press material describing the 2024 release Togouchi MISTY Stillman’s Selection, Sakurao B&D describes the tunnel environment as genuinely harsh: mist fills the space, and the humidity is high enough that the metal hoops on the casks corrode heavily. The company frames this corrosion as part of what shapes the whisky’s character, rather than something the tunnel design manages away. That is a rare instance of a Japanese producer volunteering a downside of its own signature process rather than smoothing it into pure romance, and it is worth taking at face value: the tunnel is not a curated show cellar, it is a repurposed piece of failed infrastructure that happens to age whisky well, with the wear and tear that implies.
Sakurao B&D now uses two ageing sites with different climates — the Togouchi tunnel and a warehouse at the Sakurao site itself, which runs warmer — and blends stock matured in both to build its final products. That two-site approach, rather than the tunnel alone, is what the company credits for the range’s character.
The distillery’s own release notes for MISTY, written for the specific batch drawn from the tunnel, describe aromas of banana, orange, apple and fresh-cut grass, with flavours running through apple pie, cream puff and jasmine tea, and a long finish of vanilla and fruit sweetness. Those are the producer’s published tasting descriptions rather than an independent review, but they are useful here because they tie a specific, unusual barrel environment to a specific, documented flavour outcome, instead of leaving the tunnel as an atmospheric backdrop with no stated effect on the liquid.
Scotland, Canada, and why Togouchi is not “Japanese whisky” on paper
Here is the detail most retailer listings skip past. The core Togouchi range — Premium, Kiwami, and the 8, 9, 12, 15 and 18 Year expressions — is made from malt whisky sourced from Scotland and grain whisky sourced from Canada, blended and finished in Japan. Under the labelling standard the Japan Spirits & Liqueurs Makers Association introduced in 2021, a product can only carry the term “Japanese whisky” if the raw spirit is distilled, aged and bottled entirely within Japan. Because Togouchi’s malt and grain components are distilled overseas, the core range is correctly labelled World Blended Whisky, not Japanese whisky, even though every other step happens in Hiroshima.
This is not a flaw or a marketing trick so much as a straightforward category mismatch that predates the 2021 standard by three decades. Togouchi was conceived in 1990 as an affordable blend built around a Japanese finishing process, at a time when no domestic labelling rule existed to distinguish it from a bottle distilled entirely in Japan. It has simply kept the same recipe since. Buyers who assume every whisky bottled by a Japanese company and sold with Japanese branding must be “real” Japanese whisky are the ones most likely to feel misled at the shelf, which is exactly the confusion the 2021 standard was written to prevent.
The lineup, and a genuine single malt joins it
Since Sakurao Distillery came online in 2018, the company has started ageing its own domestically distilled malt spirit in the same tunnel, and in May 2024 it released the first single malt sold under the Togouchi name: MISTY Stillman’s Selection, described by the distillery as malt hand-picked by its stillman from spirit matured in the mist-filled tunnel. Unlike the rest of the range, MISTY is distilled, aged and bottled entirely in Japan, which makes it eligible for the Japanese whisky designation the older Togouchi blends cannot carry.
| Expression | Style | Spirit source | Label category |
|---|---|---|---|
| Togouchi Premium | Blended, no age statement | Scottish malt + Canadian grain | World Blended Whisky |
| Togouchi 15 Year | Blended, age-stated | Scottish malt + Canadian grain | World Blended Whisky |
| Togouchi Kiwami | Blended, no age statement | Scottish malt + Canadian grain | World Blended Whisky |
| MISTY Stillman’s Selection | Single malt | Sakurao-distilled malt | Japanese whisky |
For a curious buyer, that split lineup is actually useful: it lets you taste the same tunnel’s effect on two very different base spirits, one imported and one distilled a few kilometres away at Sakurao. See our guide to Sakurao Distillery for how the malt in MISTY is actually made.
Where to find Togouchi outside Japan
Togouchi has been exported for longer than most small Japanese whisky brands, and the Premium and age-stated expressions turn up fairly reliably at specialist whisky retailers in the UK and continental Europe, generally at a lower price point than single malts from the better-known distilleries. Our guides to buying Japanese whisky in the UK and buying Japanese whisky in the US cover the retailers most likely to stock world blended brands like this one, since not every shop that carries Suntory or Nikka bothers to list them. MISTY, as a newer and more limited release built from Sakurao’s own malt, is harder to find outside Japan for now.
Q: Is Togouchi a real Japanese whisky?
A: Mostly no, and that is by design rather than deception. The core Togouchi range (Premium, Kiwami, and the 8 through 18 Year bottlings) is blended from malt whisky distilled in Scotland and grain whisky distilled in Canada, then aged and bottled in Hiroshima. Under Japan’s 2021 labelling standard, that makes it a World Blended Whisky rather than Japanese whisky, since the standard requires the spirit itself to be distilled in Japan. The exception is MISTY Stillman’s Selection, a single malt distilled at the company’s own Sakurao Distillery, which does qualify as Japanese whisky.
Q: Why is Togouchi whisky aged in a tunnel?
A: The tunnel is a disused railway test bore near Togouchi in Akiota, Hiroshima, originally dug in the 1930s for a line that was cancelled in 1980 and never opened. It holds a nearly constant 14 to 15 degrees Celsius and around 80% humidity year-round, conditions the distillery considers favourable for slow whisky maturation. Rather than build a new warehouse, the company repurposed the existing tunnel it already had access to on land near its facilities.
Q: What company makes Togouchi whisky?
A: Togouchi is made by Sakurao Brewery and Distillery, based in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima, and known for most of its history as Chugoku Jozo. The company was founded in 1918 as a sake, shochu and mirin producer, began making whisky in 1990, opened its own whisky distillery in 2018, and adopted its current name in 2021. It also produces Sakurao-branded single malt whisky and gin at the same distillery.
Q: What is the difference between Togouchi and Sakurao whisky?
A: Both brands belong to Sakurao Brewery and Distillery and both can be aged in the same Togouchi tunnel, but the spirit inside the bottle differs. Sakurao-branded whisky is distilled at the company’s own Sakurao Distillery from Japanese-made malt and grain spirit, so it qualifies as Japanese whisky. Togouchi’s core range instead uses malt from Scotland and grain from Canada, making it a World Blended Whisky, with the newer MISTY expression as the one exception distilled entirely in-house.
Sources
- Sakurao Brewery and Distillery, press release: “Togouchi MISTY Stillman’s Selection” (Japanese), sakuraodistillery.com
- たのしいお酒.jp, “戻河内ウイスキーがウイスキーマニアをうならせる理由” (Japanese), tanoshiiosake.jp
- whiskey-spirits.jp, “广島の地ウイスキー「戻河内」｜トンネル内の熊成が生む味わいとは” (Japanese), whiskey-spirits.jp
- Hamada City Tourism Association, on the Imafuku Line’s history (Japanese), kankou-hamada.or.jp
- Le Comptoir Irlandais, product notes on Togouchi and the tunnel warehouse, comptoir-irlandais.com
- The Dramble, “Togouchi 18 Year Old Review,” thedramble.com