Ikawa Distillery (井川蒸溜所) is a single malt distillery 1,200 meters up in Japan’s Southern Alps, on the headwaters of the Oi River (大井川) in Shizuoka Prefecture. It opened in November 2020 and is run by Juzan (十山), a forestry company in the Tokushu Tokai Paper (特種東海製紙) group that owns the 24,430-hectare forest the distillery sits in. It has no age-stated whisky yet. What it sells instead is the Dessin Series, a yearly pair of young single malts that the company openly describes as sketches toward a 12-year-old it has not made.
Most English coverage stops at “remote” and “high altitude.” This guide uses Juzan’s Japanese pages and a 2026 interview in the Shogakukan magazine Serai (サライ) to explain why a paper company distills, how thin air shaped the stills, and what the labels mean.
Why a paper company built a distillery in the Southern Alps
A forest bought in 1895
The story starts with land, not whisky. According to Juzan’s company history, the industrialist Okura Kihachiro (大倉喜八郎) bought the Ikawa forest in 1895, all 24,430 hectares of it, for 50,000 yen. In 1907 he founded Tokai Shiryo (東海紙料), the company that grew into Tokai Pulp and, after a 2010 merger, Tokushu Tokai Paper. The forest was its pulpwood source.
That arrangement did not last. Juzan’s own account of the forest is unusually blunt. As logging moved deeper into the valleys, hauling costs rose. The yen floated in 1973 and then climbed, and wages went up, so imported timber undercut Ikawa wood. In 1982 a typhoon wrecked the forest roads and cable lines, and timber production stopped.
Breaking the forest into parts
In 2020 the paper group spun its Southern Alps division off as Juzan and opened the distillery the same year. The company says it set aside self-imposed nature protection zones and allowed economic activity in only a small area. Then it broke the forest down into its parts (water, climate, timber) and asked what each could be used for. Whisky was one of the answers.
Juzan president Suzuki Kohei (鈴木康平) told Serai that water was the starting point. The Tokusa spring (木賊湧水) has long been known locally as good water. “When we started from the water, we could see the possibility of whisky,” he said. In his view, the cold, wet, misty climate should suit maturation, and the forest could supply cask wood. “It is a very inconvenient place to make anything, but we thought there had to be a spirit that could only be made here.”
For a drinker, this matters: Ikawa is not a brand built to sell young spirit into a boom. Its owner has held the forest since 1895 and is betting on a 12-year whisky.
Where it is, and why the place shapes the spirit
The road in
Serai reports that the drive from Shizuoka Station takes about four hours. The last stretch is a forest road closed to general traffic. The distillery stands beside the uppermost Oi River, ringed by 3,000-meter peaks. The whole Ikawa forest is part of the Minami Alps UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (designated in 2014). Suzuki joked that Ikawa competes for first or second place in Japan for difficulty of access. Staff work 11-day shifts on the mountain, then four days in town.
Juzan’s spec sheet lists a temperature range of 30°C in summer to minus 15°C in winter, and air pressure of 880 hPa. Most of the design decisions below come from those two numbers.
Low pressure and the stills
Water boils at a lower temperature in thin air, so a still on a mountain behaves differently from the same still at sea level. Juzan’s answer was to give both pot stills, built by Miyake Seisakusho (三宅製作所), a straight neck and a lyne arm angled slightly downward. Serai explains the aim: the downward angle was meant to push the spirit toward a heavier character to offset the altitude. A downward lyne arm sends less reflux back into the pot, so more of the heavier compounds carry over into the condenser.
Winter and the washbacks
At minus 15°C, a wooden washback would struggle to hold a steady fermentation. Ikawa uses four stainless washbacks with cold and hot water jackets so temperature can be adjusted to the day’s weather. Serai describes warm water running through internal pipes on the coldest winter days. The warehouses run the other way: Serai reports that around 1,300 casks mature with no temperature control at all, left to the mountain climate.
How Ikawa makes its whisky
Respecting Scotland, measuring everything
Serai interviewed Seto (瀬戸泰栄), who led distillation at the time of reporting. He came from the paper company’s chemical analysis team and learned whisky making at Mars Komagatake (マルス駒ヶ岳) in Nagano. Juzan’s October 2026 release names Murofushi (室伏大司) as distillery manager. Seto chose a conventional method. “We respect the methods of Scotland,” he told the magazine. “And a simple process should make it easier to express the character of the Southern Alps environment.” If you know the story of Mars Shinshu, another high-altitude distillery, you can see how that training shaped the thinking.
The paper-industry background shows up in the lab. Juzan says it measures wort clarity with a turbidity meter. Serai reports daily logging of dissolved oxygen in the wash and yeast viability. The goal is repeatability. Still, the official page says cut points are decided by human taste.
The equipment, as published
Juzan publishes a short spec list, and the figures below come from it. The distillery mashes Scottish malt, one tonne per batch, milled on a six-roller Kunzel mill, in a single stainless mash tun. Fermentation runs in four stainless washbacks. One wash still and one spirit still, both steam-heated with shell-and-tube condensers. Stated annual capacity is about 70,000 liters. The spring water has a hardness of 40 mg/L, which is soft. That is the small-batch bracket of most craft sites in our list of Japanese distilleries.
Casks from their own trees
The warehouse holds mainly bourbon barrels and sherry casks. The long-term plan is cask wood from the company’s own forest. Juzan built its first Mizunara cask from a fallen tree. Serai explains the catch. Ikawa’s Mizunara tends to grow twisted, which makes straight stave timber hard to cut. So Juzan started with the cask heads: it swapped the heads of used casks for boards cut from the forest. It is a modest first step.
Yeast from leaves and flowers
The most unusual project is wild yeast. Seto told Serai that the team collects plants around the distillery and runs trials with Shizuoka University (静岡大学). Two years before the interview, they mashed with a wild yeast isolated from magnolia blossom. At the time of reporting they were selecting yeast from fallen Mizunara leaves, which they pile on site and let half-compost. We found no release confirmed to use these strains, so treat this as research.
The Dessin Series: what the labels mean
Sketches toward a 12-year-old
“Dessin” is the French word for drawing, and the meaning is literal. Juzan says its target is a 12-year-old whisky whose components are in harmony, the way species are in a mature ecosystem. The Dessin bottlings are the sketches made along the way. Non-peated releases are called Flora and carry a Southern Alps plant on the label. Peated releases are called Fauna and carry an animal. The company says the series will run every year until its regular release arrives, with more than 20 motifs planned. In October 2026 the packaging won a Good Design Award (グッドデザイン賞), which judged it to link the habitat and the whisky.
The motifs are specific. Flora 2024, the first release, shows Takane-mantema (タカネマンテマ), an endangered alpine flower. Fauna 2026 shows the Kumataka (クマタカ), the mountain hawk-eagle. Juzan chose it as an apex predator that signals a deep food chain. Flora 2026 shows Takane-biranji (タカネビランジ), which grows on wind-swept alpine gravel.
The releases so far
Every Dessin release so far is non-chill-filtered and bottled at high strength. The table lists the 700ml releases as published on Juzan’s line-up page. Prices are Japanese recommended retail including tax.
| Release | Style | ABV | Cask type and price (JPY) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dessin Series Flora 2024 | Non-peated | 53% | Bourbon barrel, 16,500 |
| Dessin Series Fauna 2025 | Peated | 53% | Bourbon barrel, 19,800 |
| Dessin Series Flora 2025 | Non-peated | 55% | Bourbon barrel, 16,500 |
| Dessin Series Fauna 2026 | Lightly peated, 15ppm | 50% | Bourbon barrel and sherry cask, 19,800 |
| Dessin Series Flora 2026 | Non-peated | 52% | Bourbon barrel, 16,500 (from late November 2026) |
Juzan says Flora 2026 includes some of the earliest spirit distilled after opening. For Fauna 2026, the company says it kept the peat restrained so the smoke would not hide the distillery’s sweet house character. If you are new to how phenol figures work, our guide to peated Japanese whisky explains what 15ppm means next to Islay-level malt.
Before Dessin came the Labo Series: single-cask, cask-strength new-make and very young spirit in 200ml bottles. These include peated batches at 30ppm and 50ppm and a 24-month sherry butt. Our guide to cask strength Japanese whisky covers how to approach spirit at 59 to 61% ABV.
Awards, read carefully
Juzan’s results page lists, among others, Japanese Whisky of the Year at the 2026 Bartender Spirits Awards for Flora 2025. It also lists Single Malt Whisky of the Year at the 2025 edition for Flora 2024, and golds at the 2025 and 2026 San Francisco World Spirits Competitions. Medals at entered competitions say the young spirit is clean, not how it will taste at 12 years. Our explainer on reading Japanese whisky awards goes into the difference.
Ikawa vs Shizuoka Distillery: two Shizuoka malts, often confused
Search “Shizuoka whisky” in English and the two get mixed up. They are different companies with different ideas. Shizuoka Distillery was built by Gaiaflow in 2016 in the Tamagawa district of Oku-Shizuoka, north of the city. It is known for running a wood-fired still alongside a still salvaged from the closed Karuizawa distillery. Ikawa is a paper group’s forest company working at altitude, and its story is about land ownership and long maturation.
| Point | Ikawa Distillery | Shizuoka Distillery |
|---|---|---|
| Operator | Juzan, part of Tokushu Tokai Paper group | Gaiaflow |
| Setting | 1,200m, Oi River headwaters, inside company-owned forest | Riverside site in Oku-Shizuoka’s Tamagawa district |
| Opened | November 2020 | 2016 |
| Signature idea | Climate, water and timber of one forest; aiming at 12 years | Wood-fired still beside a salvaged Karuizawa still |
For still-driven experiments, watch Shizuoka (see its Japanese barley Pot Still W release). For maturation-led whisky developing year by year, follow Ikawa.
Where to buy Ikawa whisky, and can you visit?
In Japan
Juzan keeps a list of Japanese liquor shops that stock its whisky on its distillery page, updated June 2026. Most releases come in both 700ml and 200ml sizes, and the 200ml size is the low-risk way to try one. If you are traveling, our Tokyo buying guide covers the specialist shops most likely to carry small-distillery releases.
Outside Japan
- Australia: Casa de Vinos describes itself as Ikawa’s exclusive Australian importer and lists Fauna 2026 and Flora 2025. See our Australia guide for other specialist shops.
- US: As of October 2026 we found no US retail listing. Shipping from Japanese stores to US addresses is generally not possible, as covered in our US buying guide.
- UK and EU: We found no UK listing either. The Diageo “Flora and Fauna” Scotch range is unrelated, so do not confuse search results.
Visiting
You cannot drive up yourself. Serai reports a few paid travel-company tours a year, and in September 2026 Juzan announced an overnight tour with Nikenkoya Lodge (二軒小屋ロッヂ), the mountain lodge it has run since 1974.
What this means if you are deciding whether to buy
An Ikawa bottle is not a finished statement. The company says so on its own label: every Dessin release is a drawing on the way to a 12-year-old. If you buy one, you are buying one stage in a long, openly documented experiment. The cool, damp climate is the main bet, and the stills, washbacks and warehouses were designed around it.
So the useful question is not “is it as good as Yamazaki?” It is whether you want to follow a young distillery from the start. The Flora and Fauna pairs give you an unpeated and a peated line to compare each year. If you want a mature, settled whisky now, wait a few years.
FAQ
Q: Who owns Ikawa Distillery?
A: Ikawa is run by Juzan (十山), a company spun off in 2020 from the Southern Alps division of Tokushu Tokai Paper. Juzan manages the 24,430-hectare Ikawa forest that the paper group’s founder Okura Kihachiro bought in 1895. The distillery sits inside that forest at 1,200 meters.
Q: Is Ikawa the same as Shizuoka Distillery?
A: No. Shizuoka Distillery is operated by Gaiaflow in the Tamagawa district of Oku-Shizuoka and opened in 2016. Ikawa is a separate company at the headwaters of the Oi River, opened in November 2020. Both are in Shizuoka Prefecture, which is why English search results often confuse them.
Q: Does Ikawa have an age-statement whisky?
A: Not yet. The company says its goal is a 12-year-old single malt. Until then it releases the Dessin Series every year, a non-peated Flora and a peated Fauna. It describes these as sketches toward that final whisky, and more than 20 label motifs are planned.
Q: Can you buy Ikawa whisky in the US or UK?
A: As of October 2026 we could not find a US or UK retail listing. Casa de Vinos in Australia says it is the exclusive importer there. In Japan, Juzan publishes a list of stockists, and most releases come in a 200ml size, which is an affordable way to try one.
Sources
- Juzan Co., “Ikawa Distillery” (Japanese) — https://juzan.co.jp/contents/ikawadistillery
- Juzan Co., “About us: company history” (Japanese) — https://juzan.co.jp/about-us
- Juzan Co., “How Juzan thinks about using the forest” (Japanese) — https://juzan.co.jp/contents/十山が考える活かし方/
- Juzan Co., “Product line-up” (Japanese) — https://juzan.co.jp/line-up
- Juzan Co., “New release: Dessin Series Flora 2026” (Japanese) — https://juzan.co.jp/newrelease-fl2026/
- Juzan Co., “New release: Dessin Series Fauna 2026” (Japanese) — https://juzan.co.jp/newrelease-fa2026/
- Juzan Co., “Whisky competition results” (Japanese) — https://juzan.co.jp/whisky-competition/
- Juzan Co., “2026 Good Design Award” (Japanese) — https://juzan.co.jp/gooddesignaward2026/
- Serai (Shogakukan), “Distilleries to watch: Ikawa Distillery” (Japanese) — https://serai.jp/?p=1265265
- Casa de Vinos, “Ikawa” brand page — https://www.casadevinos.com.au/spirits/japanese-whisky/ikawa/