Takamine Japanese Whiskey Sakura Cask

In 1890 Jokichi Takamine moved to America and by 1900 the scientist created medical adrenaline. He donated the Japanese cherry trees to Washington, DC that you can still visit today. One of his earlier experiments used an ancient sake-making method to grow koji spores on barley to create a “maltless” whiskey. It turns out koji is better than malting for making whiskey. If not for his misfortune, this may have become a style of American whiskey by 1895. Sadly, the original Takamine Whiskey he made was never released. This paved the way for the Shinozaki Brewery & Distillery with over 200 years of experience using koji as sake makers, to take a chance on whiskey.

Takamine Koji Whiskey is made with the patented Takamine Process, which uses an ancient Japanese mold, koji, to convert starches to sugars in a process similar to malting barley. Unlike malt whiskey where sugars are extracted in a warm water mash before yeast is introduced to start the fermentation, both the koji and yeast are active at the same time in a multiple parallel fermentation.