Yoichi

Masataka Taketsuru — the chemist who learned whisky-making in Scotland and co-founded Yamazaki — struck out on his own in 1934, choosing Yoichi on Hokkaido's coast for its resemblance to the Highlands. His distillery still direct-fires its stills with coal, a practice nearly extinct even in Scotland, producing a muscular, faintly smoky, maritime malt that stands as Japan's most traditional whisky. Nikka's soul lives here, in salt air and coal heat.