For a time Karuiazawa, a whisky distillery located at Miyota, a town on the southern slopes of an active complex volcano, Mount Asama, was the smallest whisky distillery in Japan.
Established in 1955, the distillery began production in 1956. It was owned by Mercian Corporation (the nucleus of the Kirin group’s wine industry). Unfortunately, Kirin could not sustain the premium whisky
production, so the Karuizawa distillery and its sister distillery at Kawasaki closed in 2011 after a deacade of inactivity. The land on which it stood was sold off in 2012. As Karuizawa is now a rare, world-famous whisky, its price has almost doubled in recent times. In 2011, the Number One Drinks Company, owned and run by David Croll of Japanese Whisky Magazine, and whisky PR Marcin Miller, bought the last few hundred casks of Karuizawa from Kirin and have slowly been releasing these in small batches.Show more