Japan Whisky Press

Komoro distillery: the Nagano heir to Karuizawa

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KEYAKI

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Long before Komoro Distillery had a still, a name, or a master blender, it had a ryokan. The inn is the part of the story almost nobody outside Japan has read, and it explains more about how this Nagano (長野) distillery makes decisions than any tasting note could.

From a Citibank trading desk to a rescued ryokan

A trader’s exit, an inn’s revival

Shimaoka Takashi (島岡高志) spent years as a bond trader at Citibank, eventually running a trading desk as an executive officer. According to the founders’ own account published through Karuizawa Distillers’ corporate story on PR Times, he left that career abruptly after an acquaintance asked him to take over a struggling, ownerless ryokan in Karuizawa (軽井沢). Shimaoka had no hospitality experience. The inn was booking rooms by hand in a sketchbook and had rooms so poorly insulated that guests shivered through winter.

He rebuilt it piece by piece: online bookings, working heating, solvency. Eighteen months after taking over, a business that had struggled to pay its staff was turning a profit and welcoming a steady stream of guests. That turnaround, by his own account, is what convinced him he could build something bigger — specifically, the whisky distillery he had wanted since falling for the whisky made at the original Karuizawa Distillery, shuttered since 2000 and now a byword for six-figure auction prices (see our Karuizawa distillery guide and auction guide for why).

Five conditions, five years, one December afternoon

Shimaoka set five conditions for a distillery site: surrounded by forest, blessed with clean water, scenically striking, climatically close to Scotland, and large enough to grow into. He spent roughly five years being turned away. People asked, bluntly, whether he had the money and whether he had ever actually made whisky. One party that did take him seriously was the Komoro city government, which helped him search local land. On December 30, 2019, standing in a forest on a low hill the city had shown him, Shimaoka says he knew immediately: this was the site. Komoro Distillery would eventually rise there, on the lower slopes of Mount Asama (浅間山), an active volcano whose snowmelt feeds the region’s water table.

The three-hour call that made Ian Chang a co-founder

Who Chang is, and why his circle tried to stop him

Land alone does not make whisky. Shimaoka needed a distiller, and he got one through an unlikely introduction: the president of Forsyths, the Scottish coppersmith that would eventually build Komoro’s stills, connected him to Ian Chang (伊恩·張), who had just left his post as master blender at Taiwan’s Kavalan distillery. Chang has since been credited with more than 500 awards across his distilling career, including IWSC Global Distiller of the Year.

Shimaoka prepared for their first meeting like a pitch: water composition data, a year of temperature readings, site photographs, a funding plan. The video call ran three hours. At the end, Chang said simply, “I’m in.” People around Chang were alarmed — trusting a stranger he’d only met on screen, after one conversation, struck some as reckless, even a possible scam. Chang has said he instead felt the meeting was a gift from his late mentor, whisky scientist Dr. Jim Swan, and chose to follow the instinct.

A debt to Jim Swan

Swan, sometimes called “the Einstein of the whisky industry” in Japanese coverage, helped launch Kavalan in Taiwan, Kilchoman on Islay, and Penderyn in Wales before his death. Chang studied under him for more than a decade, describing himself at the time as “a dry sponge absorbing water.” That lineage is why Komoro’s November 2026 launch events feature Swan’s daughter, Caroline Lennon, who assisted her father’s water and microbiological research, alongside veteran whisky writer Charles MacLean MBE.

Why the distillery isn’t called “New Karuizawa”

The argument for reviving a legendary name

Shimaoka’s original instinct, by his own account, was to resurrect the Karuizawa name outright — it was the whisky that first pulled him in, and reviving a closed legend carried obvious brand equity. Chang pushed back. He argued the pair should concentrate on making the best original Japanese whisky they could, on the strength of Komoro’s own water, environment, and the people who had backed the project, rather than trade on someone else’s closed chapter. They settled on Komoro Distillery as the operating name and KOMORO as the flagship brand — a deliberate decision to build a new identity rather than borrow an old one, even though the parent company is named Karuizawa Distillers.

Shu-ha-ri: Chang’s plan for a style that outlives him

Chang frames his own role at Komoro through shu-ha-ri (守破離), the traditional Japanese framework for mastery found in tea ceremony and martial arts: shu is faithfully learning a master’s form, ha is breaking from it to apply your own judgment, and ri is establishing something wholly your own. A decade under Swan was his shu. Komoro, he says, is his ha — and he has spoken of wanting to build a whisky-making style that survives long enough to reach ri across multiple generations of distillers, a cycle he estimates at thirty to forty years.

What Mount Asama’s foothills actually give the whisky

The checklist behind the site

Komoro Distillery sits on the volcano’s lower slopes, reported by multiple trade outlets including Whisky Magazine and Club Oenologique at more than 900 metres above sea level — among the highest whisky sites in Japan, alongside Mars Shinshu in the same prefecture. The site was chosen specifically to meet Shimaoka’s five conditions: forest cover, clean water fed by the volcano, a dramatic outlook, a Scotland-like climate, and room to expand. Komoro’s own materials describe the water as central to the character of its new-make spirit, and the distillery ages a portion of its stock in mizunara oak — the same notoriously leak-prone, slow-to-source Japanese oak we cover in our mizunara oak explainer — alongside sherry and ex-bourbon casks sourced internationally.

Two Forsyths stills, and a build that ran three years late

Production equipment came from Forsyths of Rothes, the same Scottish firm that supplies much of the malt whisky industry, and Komoro operates on two custom copper pot stills. The build itself was anything but smooth: unstable, steep ground, buried construction debris discovered mid-project, a pandemic that kept Chang out of the country for more than a year, and a 2022 spike in materials costs and shipping delays that pushed the original October 2022 completion date back to June 18, 2023. The founders have said publicly that the delay wasn’t only a setback — the extra time let them rethink Komoro as a larger, visitor-facing operation rather than the smaller, production-only site first planned. First distillation followed on June 20, 2023, two days after the completion ceremony, and the visitor centre opened that July.

KOMORO ORIGIN: the first single malt, confirmed and unconfirmed

What Karuizawa Distillers has disclosed so far

Three years after that first distillation, Komoro is releasing its debut single malt, KOMORO ORIGIN, on November 7, 2026. Confirmed specifications, per the distillery’s own release materials: 48% ABV, bottled in 700ml and 200ml formats, distilled in 2023, and limited to 4,000 bottles for the first release. What the distillery has not yet disclosed publicly, as of this writing, is the retail price or the specific cask types used for maturation — both are marked as pending on the official release information. We won’t guess at either.

The release week, and who’s showing up

The rollout starts a day early: November 6 brings “KOMORO = KANPAI,” a toast held simultaneously at the distillery and satellite venues, timed to a shared 6pm toast. November 7 through 15 is “KOMORO First Release Week,” with masterclasses led by Chang, cask warehouse tours, tastings, and events spreading into the city of Komoro itself, timed to the region’s autumn foliage and apple and wine season. The two headline talks on November 6 and 7 pair Chang with Charles MacLean MBE — Whisky Magazine’s founding editor and a Keeper of the Quaich — and Caroline Lennon, discussing the distillery’s path from that 2019 forest visit to its first bottled release, with Eddie Ludlow, Komoro’s chief educator and a Keeper of the Quaich in his own right, moderating.

Where Komoro fits among Japan’s new-generation distilleries

Komoro is one of a wave of distilleries that opened in Japan over the past fifteen years, most without the government-scale backing of Suntory or Nikka. Here’s how it compares with three others we’ve profiled, including the original Karuizawa it takes its name from.

Distillery Region First distilled Defining trait
Komoro Nagano 2023 Karuizawa lineage, Jim Swan school via Ian Chang
Karuizawa (original) Nagano 1955, closed 2000 Closed; vintages now set auction records
Mars Shinshu Nagano 1985, restarted 2011 One of Japan’s highest-altitude distilleries
Chichibu Saitama 2008 Ichiro’s Malt, heavy mizunara use, sells out on release

For the fuller picture of who else is operating right now, see our running list of Japanese whisky distilleries.

Buying Komoro whisky

As of this writing, KOMORO ORIGIN is being sold at the distillery itself starting November 7, 2026, with no online store confirmed for the first release. A separate 200ml commemorative set will be available at the November 6 celebration events, including some venues outside the distillery. There is currently no confirmed export or allocation plan for the US, UK, or EU markets. Readers outside Japan hoping to try it should expect to wait for a wider release or a distillery visit; we’ll update this guide once international availability is confirmed rather than speculate on it now.

Q: Is Komoro Distillery the same as Karuizawa Distillery?

A: No. Komoro is a new distillery built by Karuizawa Distillers, the company founded by Shimaoka Takashi, but it does not use whisky, equipment, or the site from the original Karuizawa Distillery, which closed in 2000. The founders deliberately chose not to brand the new distillery or its whisky as a Karuizawa revival, opting instead for the independent KOMORO name while keeping Karuizawa in the parent company’s title as a nod to its origins.

Q: When can I buy Komoro whisky outside Japan?

A: There is no confirmed date. The debut release, KOMORO ORIGIN, goes on sale only at the distillery from November 7, 2026, with no international distributor or online store announced at the time of writing. Given how recently the distillery began releasing stock, expect any export availability to be limited and to follow well after the Japan-only launch, likely through specialist retailers once volumes allow.

Q: What does KOMORO ORIGIN cost?

A: The retail price had not been announced as of this writing; Karuizawa Distillers listed it as pending in its own release materials alongside the cask types used. What is confirmed is the format: 700ml and 200ml bottles, 48% ABV, distilled in 2023, with the first release capped at 4,000 bottles.

Q: Who is Ian Chang, Komoro’s master blender?

A: Ian Chang is Komoro’s co-founder and master distiller and blender, previously master blender at Taiwan’s Kavalan distillery, where work under his direction won more than 500 awards including IWSC Global Distiller of the Year. He trained for over a decade under whisky scientist Dr. Jim Swan, who also helped establish Kavalan, Kilchoman, and Penderyn, and frames his work at Komoro as building toward an independent, multi-generational house style.

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