Yamazaki Distillery in pictures
Located in the rural town of Yamazaki, in Shimamoto, Osaka Prefecture of Japan, Yamazaki Distillery was built in 1923, becoming the first whisky distillery in Japan and pioneer of the Japanese whisky movement. Founded by Shinjiro Torii, Yamazaki started production in 1924 and released its first product – Suntory Whisky ‘White Label’ – in 1929.
A former pharmaceutical wholesaler, grape wine and liqueur producer, Torii named Suntory after the sun logo of his Akadama Port Wine brand, integrating it with his own name. Yamazaki is one of three Japanese whisky distilleries owned by Suntory, alongside fellow malt whisky producer Hakushu and grain producer Chita.
The location of Yamazaki Distillery was selected for its high quality water and good environment, which is generally damp, humid and misty – ideal conditions for whisky maturation. The distillery is located at the foothills of Mt. Tenno, which is wrapped in a bamboo forest, while three rivers – Katsura, Uji and Kizu – all run through the area.
Yamazaki’s water quality was so admired that Sen no Rikyu, master of the Japanese tea ceremony, set up a teahouse in the area.
This still, situated outside in the grounds of the distillery, was decommissioned and removed from Yamazaki’s stillhouse 60 years ago – making it one of the first whisky stills in Japan. The still is green in colour due to the interaction of copper and oxygen over time.
This still, much more golden in colour, was taken out of the distillery 10 years ago. While many Scottish distilleries replace parts of their stills over a number of years, Suntory replaces entire stills every 30 years. Some of the company’s stills are made by a coppersmith in Osaka, while others are made in Scotland.
A statue of Shinjiro Torii (left) and his son Keizo Saji (right). Saji became Suntory’s second master blender, after his father, and led Yamazaki’s move into single malt whiskies, overseeing the release of Suntory Single Malt Whisky Yamazaki in 1984. He also led the build of Suntory’s Hakushu Distillery in 1973.
While the company once used Japanese barely, Suntory now imports the majority of its barley from Scotland. Yamazaki has two mash tuns – a large one capable of holding 16 tonnes of barley, and a smaller one with capacity for four tonnes.
The distillery has eight wooden washbacks that are five metres deep, and 12 stainless steel washbacks in a different room. Since wood is more difficult to clean than steel, Yamazaki believes its whiskies are given a distinct flavour from leftover organisms. Each batch of liquid is usually given a three-day fermentation period.
Compared to Scotland and other leading whisky-producing regions, Japan is unique in its use of multiple styles of stills within one stillhouse. Yamazaki has eight stills (four pairs) in its main stillhouse, and an additional four (two pairs) that were installed in a different part of the building in 2013. All pairs are unique in shape and style, allowing Yamazaki to produce more than 100 different styles of whisky.
A number of Japanese whisky distilleries are constructed in this way as there is no business of trading, buying or selling stock for blends in Japan, which is the case in Scotland. As such, distilleries that create blended varieties must distill a number of different whisky styles.
Both Yamazaki and Hakushu have maturation warehouses on-site, but the majority of Suntory’s one million whisky casks are stored at a separate complex in Omi, in the Shiga Prefecture. Yamazaki stores 10,000 casks, with the oldest varieties sitting at around 25-years-old. However, a few empty casks that were filled with whisky in 1924 have been kept as memorabilia.
