Suntory (サントリー) will release a limited edition of Ao (碧), its five-country blended whisky, on December 15, 2026, this time built to bring the Scotch component forward. Suntory Whisky Ao Scotch Edition is bottled at 51% ABV in a 700ml bottle with a suggested retail price of ¥6,000 before consumption tax, and it will be sold nationwide in Japan in limited quantities. It is the second release in the brand’s World Travel Collection, which began with an Irish Edition in June, and it is the strongest Ao bottling Suntory has announced so far.
What is in the bottle
Ao is blended only from whiskies made at distilleries the Suntory group owns in what it calls the world’s five major whisky regions: Ireland, Scotland, the United States, Canada and Japan. The standard bottling is presented as a balance of all five. The World Travel Collection changes that approach. Each edition keeps the five-country recipe but tilts the blend toward one country’s style, and for the Scotch Edition Suntory says the emphasis is meant to produce a smoky, complex profile. The company has not published the share of each component, the ages of the whiskies used or which Scottish distilleries supplied the malt. The group’s Scottish holdings include Laphroaig and Bowmore on Islay, Ardmore in the Highlands, Auchentoshan and Glen Garioch, but Suntory has not linked any of them to this release.
The label is made from Echizen washi (越前和紙), a traditional paper from Fukui Prefecture that Suntory also uses on the standard bottle and the Irish Edition. This time the design is built around a deep gray, which Suntory says stands for the smoky side of Scotch. The Irish Edition, released on June 9, used a lighter color scheme, was bottled at 43% ABV and carried the same ¥6,000 suggested price.
The new edition arrives less than a year after Ao’s first major overhaul. In December 2025 Suntory reformulated the standard blend, adding Yamazaki (山崎) malt aged more than 30 years in Spanish oak casks and bourbon aged at least eight years, and redesigned the packaging. At the same time it changed the product name: the bottle once sold as Suntory World Whisky Ao is now Suntory Whisky Ao. The standard 700ml bottle remains 43% ABV and ¥6,000 before tax, so the Scotch Edition costs the same while carrying eight more percentage points of alcohol.
Ao has a longer life outside Japan than most Suntory limited releases. Suntory announced it in January 2019 as the first blend to combine whiskies from all five major producing countries, took it to global travel retail in October 2020 and brought it to the US in February 2023. That makes it one of the few Suntory whiskies sold abroad that is openly a world blended whisky rather than Japanese whisky. For the World Travel Collection, however, Suntory has not announced any overseas release. Both the Irish and Scotch Edition press releases name Japan as the sales area. Among Suntory’s Japanese whiskies, the house most associated with a smoky style is Hakushu (白州), whose malts include peated components; the difference is that Hakushu is a Japanese single malt, while Ao draws on five countries.
Why this matters
Ao gives Suntory something its Japanese single malts cannot easily provide: a brand that can carry frequent limited editions at a fixed price. Aged stock at Yamazaki and Hakushu is still allocated tightly, and new Yamazaki releases such as the Refill Spanish Oak edition due on November 24 reach Japanese shelves in small numbers. Because Ao draws on the group’s distilleries worldwide, Suntory can vary the recipe twice in one year without relying mainly on Japanese malt. The World Travel Collection looks set to continue in that direction: with Ireland and Scotland done, the United States, Canada and Japan remain, although Suntory has not confirmed further editions.
The release also matters for labeling. The Japan Spirits & Liqueurs Makers Association (日本洋酒酒造組合) standards, which took full effect for existing products in April 2024, reserve the term Japanese whisky for whisky fermented, distilled, aged and bottled in Japan, as explained in our guide to what counts as Japanese whisky. Ao does not use that term, and Suntory’s own descriptions state clearly that it is a five-country blend. But since the 2025 renaming, the word “World” no longer appears in the product name, and a bottle that says “Suntory Whisky” on a Japanese shelf sits next to Hibiki and Yamazaki. Buyers who want to know what they are paying for should read the description rather than the brand name. The same habit helps with other blends of imported and Japanese whisky, such as Ichiro’s Malt and Grain.
Not everyone in Japan is convinced by the strategy. When the Irish Edition was announced in April, the Japanese whisky site BARREL argued that tilting the blend toward one country departs from Ao’s original idea of balancing all five, and that changing the recipe so often could blur what the brand stands for. The 51% Scotch Edition is a different kind of answer: a mainstream Suntory blend at a strength well above the 43% of Toki or Hibiki Harmony, sold at a regular-release price.
For readers outside Japan
For now, the Scotch Edition is a Japan-only release. Suntory has not announced exports, and limited Japanese releases of this kind rarely reach overseas retailers in meaningful numbers. Readers who want to try Ao at home should look for the standard bottling, which has been sold in the US and in airport duty-free shops. Suntory has not said whether export bottles use the December 2025 recipe. Labels reading “Suntory World Whisky Ao” carry the original name, which in Japan marked the pre-2025 blend. Our guides to where to buy Japanese whisky in the US and in the UK list retailers that carry Suntory’s range.
Visitors to Japan from December 15 have the simplest route. Suntory says the edition will be sold nationwide, so liquor stores and large retailers in major cities are the places to look, but stock is limited and the price at the shelf may differ from the suggested ¥6,000. Our guides to buying Japanese whisky in Tokyo and Narita duty free explain where prices tend to be best. Ordering from a Japanese shop and using a forwarding service is not a reliable alternative, because the US, Canada and several other markets restrict spirits shipped that way, as covered in our guide to importing Japanese whisky from Japan.
Readers who want smoke with a clear Japanese origin can look at the Hakushu distillery range, which is exported, and anyone curious about how Japanese and Scottish styles differ can start with our explainer on Japanese whisky vs Scotch.
Source: PR TIMES (Suntory) (Japanese). Background: Suntory’s Irish Edition and 2025 renewal releases on PR TIMES and PR TIMES (Japanese); commentary from BARREL (Japanese).