Japan Whisky Press

Kirishima Yokogawa distillery: Kagoshima shochu goes malt

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Kirishima Yokogawa Distillery (霧島横川蒸留所) is a shochu house in the hills of Kirishima, Kagoshima Prefecture, that started making single malt whisky in 2023. It is run by At Star Co., Ltd. (アットスター株式会社), it distills on converted shochu equipment, and so far it sells almost entirely inside Japan. Its first bottle with more than three years in cask, Kirishima 531, went on sale in August 2026.

The longer story is a shochu brewery that waited over two years for a licence, uses only the first runnings of its wort, and openly plans to change its stills to win over non-shochu drinkers. This guide draws on the distillery’s Japanese-language releases and crowdfunding pages.

Kirishima Yokogawa at a glance

Everything below comes from At Star’s own published material.

  • Location: Yokogawa-cho, Kirishima City, Kagoshima, in the foothills of the Kirishima mountains, at roughly 300 meters above sea level
  • Operator: At Star Co., Ltd., a company headquartered in Tokyo and founded in 2000
  • Distilling roots: shochu since the late 1940s; the predecessor brewery, Kogane Shuzo (黄金酒造), dates its shochu making to 1949
  • Whisky production: licence approved in May 2023; the company marks May 31, 2023 as the start of its whisky making
  • Style so far: unpeated malt, matured mainly in sherry casks, with mizunara, red and white wine, and bourbon casks also in use
  • Stills: stainless steel shochu pot stills, with a copper pot still planned (see below)
  • Brands: Yokogawa (横川) and Kirishima (霧島), plus limited labels

One point of confusion is worth clearing up immediately. This distillery has no connection to Kirishima Shuzo (霧島酒造), the large Miyazaki producer behind Kuro Kirishima shochu. The shared name comes from the mountain range, not from a shared owner.

From a 1949 shochu house to a whisky licence

A shochu brewery with a health-first philosophy

The Yokogawa site has made shochu for more than seven decades. The company describes its shochu philosophy as making spirits that are “kind to the body,” and says it has always tried to make distilled drinks nobody else makes. That streak shows in the shochu the distillery sells today, which includes barley and sweet potato shochu aged in Japanese red wine casks until they turn a pale pink.

Why add whisky? The official site gives a plain answer: the company wanted to take Kagoshima’s distilling skill to the rest of the world. Shochu barely travels. Whisky does. Kagoshima’s other shochu houses reached the same conclusion first, as our guides to Kanosuke and Mars Tsunuki explain.

Two years and three months of waiting

The move was not quick. In its August 2026 release, At Star writes that it was stuck in front of the “high wall” of the whisky manufacturing licence for two years and three months. The company describes nights when it nearly gave up, and credits a senior alumnus from the founders’ high school with pushing the application through.

That school link is not incidental. A separate April 2026 release states that the distillery is run by graduates of Seiko Gakuin (聖光学院), a well-known private school in Yokohama. The alumni released a single malt called Seiko, with the label calligraphy written by the school’s principal and 5% of sales donated to the school. It is an unusual origin: a team with Yokohama school ties, working through a rural shochu brewery and its veteran craftsmen.

Why the debut bottle is called 531

When the first whisky with more than three years of maturation arrived, At Star named it after the start date, May 31, 2023. The company says the name is a promise “never to forget” the passion of those early days, and the people who helped. The bottle is even bottled at 53.1% ABV to match. The alumnus who helped secure the licence died in March 2026, before the bottle was released, and the company dedicated the whisky to him. We covered the launch in our Kirishima 531 news report.

How Kirishima Yokogawa makes its whisky

First runnings only

The most distinctive production choice is what the distillery calls ichiban shibori (一番搾り), or first-runnings production. In most malt distilleries, mashing involves several waters, and the later, weaker worts are collected too. At Star writes that typical whisky production draws worts up to the third water, while Yokogawa uses only the first wort.

The company’s stated reason is clarity: the first wort carries the fewest off-flavors and gives a cleaner, brighter base. The trade-off is yield. Throwing away later sugar means less alcohol per ton of malt, which is an expensive choice for a young distillery. It tells you that the team chose spirit character over efficiency from day one.

Shochu thinking: lactic fermentation and low-temperature distillation

The other two pillars come straight from shochu. At Star describes a lactic acid fermentation method, managed with its own temperature and timing, which it says builds fruity esters in the wash. It also describes low-temperature distillation, taking the spirit slowly while controlling heat to avoid harsh, cooked flavors.

The factory manager, Kuroiwa (黒岩), made the shochu connection explicit in the distillery’s 2023 crowdfunding page. Whisky and shochu share the same basic path: convert a starch to sugar, ferment with yeast, distill the wash. The brewery’s craftsmen, who have worked in shochu for more than 20 years, apply what they learned there, especially fermentation temperature control. The official site adds a telling detail: sweet potato is considered harder to ferment than barley, so a team that handles potato can bring real skill to malt.

Stainless steel stills, and the case for copper

Here is where Kirishima Yokogawa is unusually candid. Since 2023 it has distilled whisky in stainless steel shochu pot stills. In a 2025 crowdfunding campaign, the company explained what that does and does not allow.

On the positive side, it says its stainless-still whisky earned the top evaluation within the Kumamoto Regional Taxation Bureau’s district. It describes the house style as bitter-edged, grain-forward, and suited to Japanese drinkers. On the other side, it admits that stainless stills tend to produce a “sharp” spirit, and that copper is needed to strip out sulfur compounds and make a cleaner whisky.

The stated goal is to make a whisky that drinkers who never touch shochu, including those abroad, will enjoy. The company even names Yamazaki as the kind of easy, widely loved style it has in mind. It said a new copper pot still would double capacity, and that it had settled on the target character before designing it. We could not confirm whether that still has been installed as of October 2026, so treat it as a plan rather than a fact.

Kirishima’s water, heat, and elevation

The “blue water”

The distillery draws groundwater from the Kirishima range for both mashing and reducing its spirit. The official site says this water filters through volcanic gravel, shirasu volcanic plateau soil, and welded tuff. The company calls it aoki mizu (蒼き水), or “blue water,” because it looks blue when it sits in the tanks. It describes the water as a natural mineral water rich in magnesium.

Because the same water is used for reduction, it is part of every bottle sold below cask strength, not just the mash.

A hot, high valley and its “golden period”

The Yokogawa site sits in a forested valley at about 300 meters. At Star says the large gap between day and night temperatures should speed up maturation. Kagoshima’s summers are long and hot, and the company calls each summer a “golden period” when its whisky moves forward quickly in cask.

This is the land shaping a production decision. A Scottish distillery might wait a decade for a cask to mature. Kirishima Yokogawa released two-year bottles and newborn spirit early, and it markets the change from year to year as part of the appeal. Its subscription offer sends buyers a small bottle of the same spirit at zero, one, and two years, then the matured whisky at three.

Mountain and sea

The official site describes the house style as whisky “raised by mountain and sea.” At Star also owns a second distillery, Kokubu Shikine (国分敷根), an older shochu facility in the Kokubu area of Kirishima. In 2023 the company said storms had torn open its roof and asked supporters to help repair it. We could not confirm how each site is used in current production, so we have left the details out.

The bottles: Kirishima, Yokogawa, and the animal labels

The range is young and changes often. Two names do most of the work. Yokogawa is the newborn line, mostly sherry cask. Kirishima is the vatted single malt line, which mixes cask types. The table lists published prices from the distillery’s own releases.

Bottle Casks (per distillery) ABV / size Price in Japan
Kirishima 531 Mainly mizunara, sherry, red wine 53.1% / 700ml 13,500 yen
Kirishima 2 Years Sherry, mizunara 50% / 700ml 9,900 yen
Yokogawa Newborn Sherry Cask (2 years) Sherry 48% / 700ml 9,900 yen
Seiko (alumni release) Sherry, mizunara, red wine 43% / 700ml 10,000 yen
Yokogawa Newborn cask strength Sherry (one year plus) 58% / 300ml 4,950 yen

At around 150 yen to the dollar, the 700ml bottles sit roughly between $65 and $90 before shipping and taxes. All are non-peated. For background on the cask types, see our guides to Japanese whisky cask types and mizunara oak.

The animal collector series

The distillery also runs an Animal Collector Series. Its dog labels show pets that staff members actually own. The cat labels imagine the “whisky cat” the team would like to keep at the distillery one day. The 2024 releases paired sherry cask malt with white or red wine cask malt.

Newborn versus “Japanese whisky”

Readers should know how these labels fit Japan’s rules. Japanese tax law sets no minimum age for whisky. The industry’s voluntary standard, however, asks for at least three years in wood before a product uses the term “Japanese whisky.” Yokogawa itself describes spirit under three years as newborn. So the two-year bottles are best read as previews of a distillery in progress. Kirishima 531 is the first to cross the three-year mark. Our guide to what counts as Japanese whisky explains the standard in full.

How to buy Kirishima Yokogawa whisky and visit

In Japan: the distillery sells through its Japanese-language online shop and through domestic liquor retailers and wholesalers named on its site. If you are in Japan, this is the easiest route.

In the US, UK, and EU: we found no established retail listing. At Star’s 2026 releases say it is still looking for overseas distribution partners, so no export channel exists yet. Be cautious of third-party listings until the distillery announces one. If you want to try importing privately, read our guide to importing Japanese whisky from Japan first. Spirits shipping rules vary by country, and US states restrict it heavily.

Visiting: the distillery is near Osumi-Yokogawa Station (大隅横川駅), whose wooden station building is a registered national cultural property. The company says it is about six minutes by car or roughly 43 minutes on foot from the station. Cask owners from its 2023 campaign could visit by phone appointment. The company has said it hopes to add public tours as part of a Kirishima tourism route. Combine a trip with Kirishima Jingu (霧島神宮) and the Kanosuke and Tsunuki distilleries on the Kagoshima whisky trail.

What this means for drinkers

Kirishima Yokogawa is not yet a distillery for buyers who want polished, ready-made whisky. It is a distillery for drinkers who want to follow a new producer from the start. The company is unusually open about its choices. It uses only first runnings, carries over shochu fermentation, and admits the limits of its stills. It also accepts that hot Kagoshima summers change its spirit fast, so it releases early and shows the progress.

That openness is the reason to pay attention, because you can judge each release against a stated goal. If the copper still arrives and the next releases move toward a cleaner, rounder style, the early bottles will have marked the starting point. For a wider view of the new names, see our full list of Japanese whisky distilleries.

FAQ

Q: Is Kirishima Yokogawa related to Kirishima Shuzo, the maker of Kuro Kirishima?

A: No. Kirishima Yokogawa Distillery is run by At Star Co., Ltd. and works from a Kagoshima shochu brewery whose roots go back to 1949. Kirishima Shuzo is a separate, much larger shochu company based in Miyakonojo, Miyazaki. Both names come from the Kirishima mountain range.

Q: When did Kirishima Yokogawa start making whisky?

A: The company says its whisky licence was approved in May 2023, after more than two years of waiting, and it marks May 31, 2023 as the start of production. Its first bottle with more than three years in cask, Kirishima 531, went on sale on August 30, 2026.

Q: Can I buy Kirishima Yokogawa whisky outside Japan?

A: Not through any established channel that we could find. As of 2026 the distillery sells through its Japanese-language shop and domestic retailers, and its press releases say it is still looking for overseas partners. Treat foreign listings with caution until the distillery itself confirms export distribution.

Q: What does “first runnings” mean at Kirishima Yokogawa?

A: It means the distillery keeps only the first wort drawn from the mash and discards the later, weaker runnings that most malt distilleries also collect. The company says this gives a cleaner base spirit with fewer off-flavors. The cost is lower yield, so it is a deliberate choice of character over efficiency.

Sources

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