Ikawa Distillery (井川蒸溜所), a remote single malt producer deep in the Southern Alps of Shizuoka Prefecture, will release Single Malt Dessin Series Flora 2026 in late November 2026, according to a release report published October 22 by the Japanese whisky news site JP Whisky (jpwhisky.net), which cites the operator’s official product page. It is the fifth bottling in the Dessin Series, a run of annual releases the distillery describes as sketches toward the 12-year-old whisky it ultimately wants to make. Flora 2026 is bottled at 52% ABV in a 700ml bottle and is priced at 16,500 yen including tax in Japan. The number of bottles has not been published.
Like every Flora release, Flora 2026 is non-peated. It is built on ex-bourbon barrel spirit, which the company calls Ikawa’s key malt, and the vatting includes whisky distilled in the distillery’s first years of operation, which began in January 2018. Each Dessin label carries a species from the Southern Alps ecosystem. This one takes takane-biranji (タカネビランジ), a small alpine pink that grows on wind-swept gravel slopes high in the range. The company says the whisky is meant to express the flower’s freshness, brightness and clarity. That is the producer’s description. We have not tasted it.
How the Dessin Series works
The series launched in 2024 and runs on two tracks. Flora bottlings carry plant motifs and are non-peated. Fauna bottlings carry animal motifs and are peated. Earlier releases include Flora 2024, Fauna 2025 and Flora 2025. Flora 2024 sold at the same 16,500 yen price as the new edition. The operator says it will keep releasing Dessin bottlings every year until its planned regular product is ready, and that more than 20 different species will appear on the labels along the way. The stated end point is a 12-year-old whisky that brings the distillery’s different spirit styles into balance, in the same way the Southern Alps ecosystem has settled into balance over a long time.
The distillery itself is unusual on almost every measure. It sits at about 1,200 meters above sea level, which the operator describes as the highest of any whisky distillery in Japan, and it draws its water from the Tokusa (木賊) spring. It is owned by a forestry company that was spun off in April 2020 from the forestry division of the paper maker Tokushu Tokai Paper (特種東海製紙) to manage the group’s Ikawa (井川) forest, a single 24,430-hectare holding that the company says is the largest contiguous private forest in Japan. That land supplies more than water. Ikawa uses mizunara oak felled in its own forest for some casks, collects acorns from the felled trees to plant new ones, and matures part of its stock in a small warehouse built even higher up the mountain, under the name Mountain Cask. The cool, damp, often foggy climate is part of the design.
Why this matters
Most of Japan’s new craft distilleries sell their first whisky at or near the three-year legal minimum, because they need the cash. Ikawa is doing something different. By naming a 12-year target in public and framing every release until then as a sketch, the distillery is telling buyers that what they are drinking now is a work in progress. Few Japanese craft producers have stated such a long horizon so plainly. It is a luxury that comes from the owner: a forestry business measures its assets in decades, not quarters, and does not need a whisky to pay back fast. A similar patience, funded in a different way, sits behind the plan at Fugaku distillery near Mt. Fuji, which will wait about five years before its first release. Our guide to Japanese whisky age statements explains why a stated 12 years means far more than a young no-age-statement bottling.
The release also adds to Shizuoka’s growing weight in Japanese whisky. The prefecture already has Kirin’s Fuji Gotemba distillery and Gaiaflow’s Shizuoka distillery, and Ikawa sits in the far north of Shizuoka City at the end of long mountain roads. Ikawa’s use of its own mizunara is worth watching. The wood is famously hard to work, as our guide to mizunara oak explains, and a distillery that controls the forest the trees come from has an advantage almost no peer can copy.
Related guides
The complete list of Japanese whisky distilleries
Japanese whisky cask types: what distilleries actually use
For readers outside Japan
Flora 2026 is a Japan release. Neither the product announcement nor the JP Whisky report mentions export, an overseas importer or an international price. If a few bottles do reach specialist shops abroad, expect them to cost well above the 16,500 yen Japanese price. Ordering from a Japanese shop is not a simple workaround either. Many will not ship spirits abroad, and some countries, including the US, restrict personal imports. Our guide to importing whisky from Japan explains which routes actually work.
Travelers in Japan in late November have the best chance of finding a bottle, at specialist liquor shops and bars that stock craft releases. Our guide to where to buy Japanese whisky in Tokyo lists the shops to try. Do not plan a visit to the distillery itself on the strength of this release. Ikawa is a long drive into the mountains, and the announcement does not mention public tours.
If you want Shizuoka whisky you can buy at home, the realistic option right now is Kirin’s: Fuji 12 Years single grain is rolling out in the UK, France and the US this autumn. It is a grain whisky rather than a single malt, so it will not tell you much about Ikawa, but it is made in the same prefecture and is on shelves abroad. For a broader map of where Japanese single malts are made, our full list of distilleries covers Ikawa’s neighbors, and the news section will carry any export announcement.
Source: JP Whisky (Japanese)