Japan is a mountainous archipelago of more than 6,800 islands, more than 126 million people, and, it can seem, almost that many types of shochu, the country’s indigenous distilled spirit. Japan is also a significant producer of whisky and has been for over a century, and it has a sophisticated cocktail culture even older than the whisky one. Indeed, it boasts of some of the most respected cocktail bars on earth.
Although Japan has an abundance of high-quality soft water, less than 12 percent of the country is classified as arable land. Despite or perhaps because of that, it makes an extraordinary variety of alcoholic beverages, from its myriad types and grades of nihonshu painstakingly fermented from rice according to ancient traditions (this is of course known to the world as “sake,” a term which in Japan is generic for all alcohol), to macro- and microbrewed beer, shochu, malt and blended whiskies, liqueurs and cordials, and even micro-distilled gins. Many of these products enjoy international reputations for quality.
While Japan is probably best known internationally for its nihonshu, the rice wine is outsold domestically by shochu and the closely related awamori made in the southernmost island prefecture of Okinawa. Surprisingly, the so-called Scotland of Japan, Kyushu Island in the country’s western region, is not known for making whisky at all. More than 250 distilleries in the island’s seven prefectures mostly produce shochu, Japan’s indigenous spirit, from a dizzying range of raw materials including things as conventional as rice, barley, and sugar cane to unique materials such as carrots and sweet potatoes. Shochu distillers seem to have used just about every plant with fermentable sugar or convertible starch that grows in Japan. See shochu. Both premium shochu and awamori are distilled once in a pot still, often vacuum-assisted, and normally bottled at 25 percent ABV for the former and 30 percent for the latter. Valued for their characteristic aromas and complex flavors, premium shochus have seen their domestic sales triple between 2002 and 2010, demand that delayed the drink’s journey to most markets outside Japan. See
Aside from Midori melon liqueur (a disco-era staple), Japan’s most recent contribution to world drinking culture is its whisky. Heavily informed by Scottish distilling practices, Japanese single malts have won copious medals, capped by whisky expert and writer Jim Murray crowning Suntory’s Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 number one in the 2015 edition of his annual whisky guide. Yamazaki also happens to be Japan’s oldest whisky distillery, founded in 1924. Nikka’s Yoichi Distillery, on the northern island of Hokkaido, is the only other whisky distillery in Japan established before World War II. See Suntory; whisky, Japanese; and whisky, scotch.
Japan’s introduction to the American art of mixing drinks came through the port of Yokohama, with the opening of the International Hotel in 1874 and the installation of former San Francisco saloonkeeper Louis Eppinger as manager of the Grand Hotel in 1890. Eppinger employed Japanese bartenders, and by 1910 they were opening their own bars, this time in Tokyo and aimed at a domestic audience. Today that city supports some of the most renowned cocktail bars on the planet, and the independent tradition of cocktail bartending developed in Japan, with its high-quality tools, its emphasis on precision, and its elaborate treatment of ice, is widely influential abroad.
Alt, Matt. “Good Libations: Examining the Evolution of Japan’s Rich Cocktail Culture.” Japan Times, March 24, 2018. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2018/03/24/food/good-libations-examining-evolution-japans-rich-cocktail-culture (accessed February 17, 2021).
Bunting, Chris. Drinking Japan. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2011.
Murray, Jim. Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2015, 12th ed. Florence, AL: Whitman, 2014.
United States Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service: Japan. http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-trade/countries-regions/japan.aspx (accessed February 17, 2021).
By: Christopher Pellegrini