Fuji Speedway Hotel (富士スピードウェイホテル), the luxury hotel built beside the Fuji Speedway racing circuit at the foot of Mount Fuji, began selling its own single malt whisky on October 7, 2026, to mark its fourth anniversary. Named “4563” after the 4,563-meter length of the circuit’s main course, the whisky was distilled and matured at Gaiaflow’s Shizuoka Distillery (静岡蒸溜所). Only 60 bottles were made, each priced at 66,000 yen (roughly $440), and they are sold in one place only: the hotel’s TROFEO lounge. The release was reported by the local news site Fuji-san Keizai Shimbun.
For whisky drinkers, the interesting part is not the racing theme but the still behind it. “4563” comes from Shizuoka’s wood-fired pot still, one of the very few stills anywhere still heated by burning firewood, which makes this a rare chance to buy a single-still expression from one of Japan’s most closely watched craft distilleries.
What is in the bottle
According to the hotel, the whisky is an unpeated single malt distilled on Shizuoka’s “Pot Still W” and aged at the distillery in Shizuoka City since 2023. The hotel describes direct wood-fire distillation as giving the spirit richness, power and a toasted character, which matches how the distillery itself has long described the still. The announcement does not give an age statement, cask type, bottling strength or bottle size, and we have not been able to confirm those details, so we are not listing them here. A 2023 fill bottled in autumn 2026 would be close to three years old, the minimum maturation period under Japan’s industry labeling standard for Japanese whisky.
The hotel’s general manager, Genta Yoshikawa (吉川源太), said the whisky is meant to capture the nature of the Fuji foothills, the energy of motorsport and the particular atmosphere of the site, and invited guests to enjoy it as part of the hotel’s own story. The hotel opened in October 2022 as the first Japanese property in Hyatt’s Unbound Collection, a brand of independently themed luxury hotels. It has around 120 rooms facing either Mount Fuji or the track and houses the Fuji Motorsports Museum, which displays about 40 historic racing cars.
The “W” still is the reason Shizuoka attracts so much attention from enthusiasts. As we explained when the distillery released its 2026 Pot Still W edition made from Japanese barley, the still pairs a copper body from Forsyths of Scotland with a firebox built by a local pizza-oven maker, and workers feed it with thinned timber from Shizuoka’s forests during each run. Shizuoka’s other still, “K”, was salvaged from the closed Karuizawa (軽井沢) distillery and produces a lighter, fruitier spirit. The distillery bottles each still’s spirit separately in limited releases, and “4563” falls on the heavier, wood-fired side of that split.
Why this matters
“4563” is a small release, but it shows how Shizuoka has become a supplier of single casks and custom bottlings to outside partners, not only a maker of its own labels. Founder Taiko Nakamura (中村大航) built the distillery around specific, unusual equipment rather than a borrowed house style, and Gaiaflow says it was the first Japanese distillery to sell private casks to individual buyers, with reservations on more than 2,000 barrels. Last month it extended that model with a 10th-anniversary sale of ten whole aged casks priced from about $20,000 to $52,000 each. A hotel commissioning a 60-bottle anniversary whisky sits in the same business: a distillery whose stock is in demand, selling it in small, named parcels.
It also fits a wider pattern of Japanese hotels using exclusive whisky to give overseas visitors a reason to buy on site. Tokyu Hotels is taking a related approach, pouring a Yakushima-aged Mars blended malt by the glass at its hotel bars, and Shizuoka itself has been courting foreign visitors, recently adding a multilingual audio guide for distillery tours. Hotel bottlings like this rarely reach export markets, so for whisky that is genuinely limited, the hotel lounge becomes the point of sale.
The location matters too. Fuji Speedway sits in Oyama (小山町), next to Gotemba (御殿場), already a destination for whisky travelers thanks to Kirin’s Fuji Gotemba distillery. Shizuoka Prefecture now offers two very different whisky stories within a couple of hours of each other: a large grain-and-malt producer owned by one of Japan’s biggest brewers, and a small independent working with firewood.
For readers outside Japan
- Where to buy. The hotel says “4563” is sold at its TROFEO lounge. No online, export or retail sales have been announced, so plan on buying in person if bottles remain.
- Availability. With only 60 bottles and sales open since October 7, stock may already be limited. We have no figure on how many remain.
- Getting there. The hotel is in Oyama, Shizuoka Prefecture, near Gotemba. Visitors combining it with the Fuji Gotemba distillery can plan a single day in the area.
- Bringing it home. Check your country’s duty-free allowance before you fly. Japan’s postal rules make shipping full-strength whisky difficult, which our guide to importing Japanese whisky from Japan explains, so carrying the bottle home is usually the practical route.
- Alternatives. Shizuoka’s own releases are hard to find abroad, and specialist shops in Tokyo are the likeliest place to look; see our Tokyo shopping guide. For background on the distillery’s two stills before you buy, start with our Shizuoka distillery guide.
We will update this story if the hotel publishes further details such as strength, cask type or remaining stock.
Source: Fuji-san Keizai Shimbun (Japanese)