Japan Whisky Press

Tenkyo distillery: Aizu’s whisky built on a founder’s notes

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Tenkyo (天鏡) is a whisky distillery in Bandai (磐梯), a small town in the Aizu (会津) region of Fukushima Prefecture, set on the western slopes of Mount Bandai above Lake Inawashiro. It began distilling in 2024 inside the grounds of Eisen Shuzo (榮川酒造), a sake brewery founded in 1869. Its own single malt is not on sale yet. What you can buy today is KAZE (風), a blended whisky made from Scottish new-make spirit matured in Aizu, and only in Japan.

English coverage has focused on the KAZE releases. This guide draws on Tenkyo’s Japanese-language pages and Japanese press to explain why a supermarket family built a Scottish-style distillery in Aizu, what the equipment was designed to do, whether KAZE counts as Japanese whisky, and what you can buy or visit.

A distillery planned by one young founder

Tenkyo Co., Ltd. was set up in 2018 as a drinks company that holds two businesses: the new Tenkyo distillery and the old Eisen sake brewery. Japan’s food-industry paper Nihon Shokuryo Shimbun (日本食糧新聞) reported in December 2023 that the company was established by Lion d’Or Corporation (リオン・ドールコーポレーション), a supermarket chain based mainly in Fukushima, with the stated aim of making a Japanese whisky that can compete worldwide.

The person behind the idea was Shunsuke Koike (小池駿介). Tenkyo’s history page says he first encountered Scotch while studying in Britain, shortly after turning 20, and was struck less by any single bottle than by the way Scottish distillers kept a 400-year tradition while still trying new things. Over time he wanted to build a distillery like the ones he had visited, and to make whisky that could go beyond them.

Three reasons, written down

Most distillery websites stop at “passion.” Tenkyo’s lists three concrete reasons:

  • To find a way for the family’s retail business to survive as Japan’s population shrinks and ages.
  • To do something for Aizu, his home region, which forecasts have flagged as an area at risk of depopulating to the point of disappearing.
  • Simply to bring the appeal of whisky to more people.

That first point matters for how you read the project. This is not a lifestyle brand bolted onto a sake house. It is a regional retailer betting that a long-aged product with a local name can bring value and visitors to a rural town.

Sixty distilleries and nineteen drawings

In 2019 Koike went back to Scotland and, by the company’s count, visited more than 60 distilleries. Blair Bowman, the Scottish whisky consultant who later became Tenkyo’s special adviser, traveled with him. He told the Japanese magazine Serai (サライ) that at every site, from tiny operations to very large ones, Koike took pages of notes and asked endless questions.

Back home, Koike commissioned the plant design from Forsyths, the Speyside firm that builds stills for many Scotch distilleries. Tenkyo says the drawings were revised 19 times. The design also went through a HAZOP (hazard and operability) study, the safety review common in Scotland, assessed by a British firm. That shows a founder copying Scotland’s process discipline, not only its look.

In the spring of 2022, Koike died at 28. Serai reported that he was among the passengers on the sightseeing boat that sank off the Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido that April. Tenkyo’s own history page puts it simply: the distillery started “six years after it was conceived, two years after the accident.” A scholarship foundation in his name, the Shunsuke Koike Foundation, is now linked from the company’s homepage.

Why Aizu, and why a sake brewery

Koike came back from Scotland convinced that water was the first thing to get right. Tenkyo says he went looking for a site on that basis and ended up partnering with Eisen Shuzo, a local brewery he describes as a team of sake professionals. Eisen was founded in 1869 by Eishiro Miyamori (宮森榮四郎). Its name comes from an old Chinese story about a hermit who washed his ears in the Ying River after being offered high office, a figure for turning away from fame. The brewery says the name expresses a wish to make sake whose quality goes beyond reputation. Koike saw that brewing culture, not just the brewery’s buildings, as something whisky could use.

The water and the cold

The distillery draws on the springs at the western foot of Mount Bandai, in particular Ryugasawa (龍ヶ沢湧水), which is on Japan’s official list of 100 notable waters. Tenkyo notes that it rises between volcanic boulders and is said never to have dried up, even in drought.

Climate is the other half. The company points out that Aizu has a Sea of Japan-side climate like Niigata’s, with heavy winter snow, unlike Fukushima’s Pacific coast. For a distillery whose first goal is long aging, a cold inland basin means slower maturation than Japan’s hot southern sites. That is a production reason for being here, not a scenic one.

Where the name comes from

Lake Inawashiro, the fourth-largest lake in Japan, has long been called Tenkyo-ko (天鏡湖), “the lake that mirrors the sky,” for its clear water. The whisky takes its name from that lake. Tenkyo calls Mount Bandai the “father mountain” and Inawashiro the “mother lake.” The distillery sits between the two, within sight of the Bandai-Asahi National Park.

What the distillery was built to do

Tenkyo has published only part of its technical specification, and we have not been able to confirm still volumes, annual output or any phenol levels, so those are not given here. What the company does describe is the design logic, and it is unusually clear.

Four stills, four spirits

The distillery has four pot stills, built to order by Forsyths. Both the wash and spirit stills use two different heating methods (Serai notes that one is direct gas fire) and two different kinds of condenser. According to Serai, combining these lets the team produce four distinct types of new make. Tenkyo says this was Koike’s own idea: more spirit styles from one site means a wider range for blending later. The mill is a vintage Porteus, a make many Scottish distilleries used for decades.

Wood and steel washbacks

Fermentation runs in ten washbacks, five stainless steel and five wooden. The company says this split was also deliberate, so that two kinds of wash character can be made even before distillation. Together, washbacks and stills give the blender a wide palette from one small site, the same logic Japan’s large producers follow because they do not trade spirit with rivals.

A sake brewmaster as chief blender

Tenkyo’s chief blender is Keiichi Narita (成田惠一), who previously worked as a toji, or sake brewmaster. On the company’s site he says he uses that experience to make whisky “with all five senses,” that the work has only just begun, and that the team is still experimenting to make the best possible new make. The one thing he says he is sure of is that a very clear wort is essential.

Tenkyo’s purpose statement puts “fermentation” at the center of the whole company, with the aim of fusing Japanese and Scottish brewing traditions. Eisen’s brewmaster, Mari Tomita (冨田眞理), says her job is to keep koji and yeast comfortable, cooling them when lively and warming them when slow. That is where the fermentation expertise sits.

KAZE and Tenkyo: two different whiskies

The most common confusion about this distillery is which bottle is which. Tenkyo uses two brand names, and they describe whiskies of different origin.

KAZE, meaning “wind,” is the founder’s experiment. Before the distillery existed, Koike imported unaged new-make spirit from three Scottish distilleries and filled it into 189 casks of 58 different types that he had sourced from around the world, then laid them down in Aizu. Tenkyo blends from those casks using a solera, a vat that is drawn from and topped up rather than emptied, so part of the original 189 casks is meant to stay in every future KAZE. The standard KAZE is 700ml at 46.9% and, per Serai, 8,250 yen. Each September 21, Koike’s birthday, Tenkyo releases a limited KAZE 921 edition; as we reported, the KAZE 921 First Edition 2026 was 921 bottles at 61.7% and 27,500 yen.

Tenkyo, by contrast, is the name reserved for the single malt distilled and matured on site. The brand page calls it a Japanese single malt “distilled in Aizu, matured in Aizu,” made with Scottish methods and local resources, with a stated emphasis on long aging. Nihon Shokuryo Shimbun reported in 2023 that the plan was to mature it for ten years and ship in 2034. Serai, writing in 2026, said only that a release date had not been set. Treat 2034 as a stated plan, not a promise.

Bottle Spirit origin Status and price in Japan “Japanese whisky” under the 2021 standard?
KAZE Scottish new make, matured and blended in Aizu On sale; 700ml, 46.9%, 8,250 yen No
KAZE 921 First Edition 2026 Scottish new make; solera vatted with PX sherry casks 921 bottles; 61.7%, 27,500 yen No
Tenkyo single malt Distilled in Aizu since 2024 Not released; 2034 target reported in 2023 Expected to qualify once aged three years or more

Is KAZE Japanese whisky?

No, and Tenkyo does not claim it is. The 2021 labeling standard set by Japan’s spirits makers requires mashing, fermentation and distillation in Japan, plus at least three years of aging in the country; our guide to the definition of Japanese whisky explains the rules. KAZE’s label lists its origin as UK-made malt and grain whisky. What makes it unusual is the honesty of the framing: instead of borrowing Japan’s name, Tenkyo sells KAZE as an Aizu-matured blend with its own story, and keeps the “Japanese single malt” label for spirit it makes itself.

What Tenkyo says it stands for

Tenkyo’s purpose page uses a four-character phrase, oubaitouri (桜梅桃李): cherry, plum, peach and damson each flower in their own season. The company reads it as patience and growth at one’s own pace. For a distillery that will not sell its own single malt for years, it is an apt motto.

One of its stated values describes innovation in three steps: protect tradition, renew tradition, create tradition. The homepage slogan, “from a small town, to the world” (小さなまちから、世界へ), ties it back to Koike’s second reason for starting.

What this means for a drinker

If you buy KAZE today, you are buying a piece of Koike’s own cask trial, kept alive by a solera that his team plans never to empty, aged in the snow climate he chose. If you wait for the Tenkyo single malt, you are waiting for spirit made on equipment he specified, by people from a fermentation-first sake tradition. The value lies less in a famous name than in a deliberately slow project. Readers who follow new Japanese distilleries will find Tenkyo sits alongside a small Fukushima group that includes Asaka and the young Tamano Ascend; our list of Japanese whisky distilleries shows where it fits nationally.

Visiting and where to buy

Distillery tours

Tenkyo runs a reservation-only tour that starts at 10:30 and lasts about 60 minutes: an introduction, a walk along the viewing corridor above production, then a tasting in the visitor center. It costs 3,000 yen per adult aged 20 or over, paid on site by card or other cashless means. Groups are capped at 12 and bookings close three days ahead. From Inawashiro station it is about 21 minutes by taxi; by car, about 8 minutes from the Bandai-Kawahigashi interchange. A September 2026 notice on the site said tours of the sake brewery had been postponed; check before you go.

United States

Tenkyo has not announced a US importer, and we found no US retail listing for KAZE as of October 2026. Japanese forwarding services generally will not send whisky to US addresses, so the practical route is to buy in Japan and carry bottles home within your duty-free allowance.

United Kingdom and Europe

Despite the Scottish spirit inside, KAZE has no announced UK or EU distribution. Our guide to importing Japanese whisky from Japan covers duties and the limits of forwarding services.

In Japan

KAZE is sold through Tenkyo’s online shop, which serves Japanese addresses, and at the on-site store, the most reliable place to find it. For the capital, see where to buy Japanese whisky in Tokyo.

FAQ

Q: Where is Tenkyo distillery?

A: Tenkyo is in Bandai, a town in the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture, on the western slopes of Mount Bandai and near Lake Inawashiro. It shares a site with the Eisen sake brewery, founded in 1869. The nearest railway stations are Inawashiro and Bandai-machi on the JR Ban-etsu West Line.

Q: Is Tenkyo single malt available yet?

A: No. The distillery started making spirit in 2024, and none of its own single malt has been released. A 2023 trade press report said the plan was ten years of aging with shipments from 2034, while a 2026 magazine feature said no release date had been fixed. Current bottles are KAZE blends.

Q: What is KAZE whisky made from?

A: KAZE is a blend of Scottish malt and grain new-make spirit from three distilleries, imported by founder Shunsuke Koike and matured in Aizu across 189 casks of 58 types. Tenkyo vats it in a solera that is topped up rather than emptied. Because the spirit was distilled in the UK, it is not Japanese whisky under the 2021 standard.

Q: Can I buy Tenkyo or KAZE outside Japan?

A: Not easily. As of October 2026, Tenkyo has announced no importer in the US, UK or EU, and its online shop serves Japanese addresses. The realistic options are buying at the distillery or online while in Japan and carrying bottles home within your allowance, or watching for small specialist imports.

Sources

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