Japan Whisky Press covers Japanese whisky in English, working from Japanese-language sources.
Most English-language coverage of Japanese whisky arrives late, filtered through press releases that have already been rewritten two or three times. We work the other way around: we read the original Japanese announcements from distilleries, importers and trade media, and we publish them in English, usually the same day.
What we cover
- Releases and news. New bottlings, distillery openings, awards, ownership changes and regulatory shifts, reported from the Japanese original.
- Distilleries. Japan now has well over a hundred operating whisky distilleries, and most of them have no English-language reference anywhere. We are building one.
- Buying. Where a bottle can actually be bought outside Japan, and what it realistically costs once it gets there.
How we work
We are independent. We are not owned by, funded by, or affiliated with any distillery, importer or retailer. We do not accept payment for coverage, and no distillery sees an article before it is published.
Where we earn money, we say so. Some links to retailers are affiliate links, and some pages carry advertising. Neither affects what we choose to write about. Our affiliate disclosure and editorial policy explain this in full.
Who we are
Japan Whisky Press is written and edited by KEYAKI, a writer based in Japan who keeps a private whisky bar at home (not a commercial one), drinks regularly in Japan’s whisky bars, and has working relationships with Japanese wholesalers. KEYAKI also publishes the Japanese-language title Private Whisky Lab Keyaki.
That matters for what you read here. What a bottle costs, how hard it is to get, and whether the interest in a release lasts are things we judge from opening these bottles and from the Japanese market itself, not from auction listings alone. More about who writes this.
Tasting notes: what we have tasted, and what we have not
Where an article describes how something tastes from first-hand experience, it says so in the first person. Where it does not, we do not invent one — we report what the distillery, the blender or the published record says, and name whose assessment it is.
Corrections, tips and questions: contact us. We correct errors openly and quickly.