Region & History

In 1923, Shinjiro Torii, founder of the company Kotobukiya, was searching for a site for Japan's first serious malt whisky facility. He found it in the Yamazaki valley, where the Katsura, Uji and Kizu rivers meet. As early as the 16th century, the tea master Sen no Rikyu had built a teahouse there, because the soft spring water was considered exceptionally good. This water, still called Rikyu-no-mizu today, was the deciding factor for Torii.

For the technical side, he brought in Masataka Taketsuru, the only Japanese man trained at Scottish distilleries. Years earlier, the company Settsu Shuzo had sent him to Glasgow to study chemistry and the craft of distilling. Torii made him the first plant manager of the facility, completed in November 1924. Two men with different visions now stood at the same still: Taketsuru wanted to capture the Scottish style, Torii wanted a taste suited to the Japanese palate.

In 1929, Suntory Shirofuda, the first whisky from Yamazaki, came onto the market. It sold poorly, as customers found the smoky note too unfamiliar. Over the following years, Torii softened the recipe and expanded the distillery, adding new stills and more warehouses on the same site.

A second turning point came in 2021: because whisky bottled abroad was being sold as "Japanese Whisky," the industry association JSLMA set a standard. Only whisky that is mashed, fermented, distilled, aged for at least three years in wooden casks, and bottled in Japan may still carry the designation. Yamazaki had met that standard long before it was ever written down.

Today the distillery ranks among the most visited in Japan, its bottles found on shelves from Kyoto to New York. Suntory lists Yamazaki as its oldest house, and distilling still takes place at the foot of Mount Tennozan, on the very site where Torii and Taketsuru began in 1923.