Yoshida Denzai is making waves in the Japanese whisky scene - and this time, it's with its fellow whiskymakers.

Where most whiskymakers immediately visualise making single malt whiskies, which are in modern times the most popular and prized style of whiskies, Yoshida Denzai has no interest in that whatsoever, and is instead focusing entirely on producing grain whiskies. Now, before you think that this is simply a matter of doing something different or perhaps the Niigata-based distillery thinks that it can make grain whiskies fashionable again, it's even more ingenious than that. Alot more ingenious than that in fact.

Those who've been keeping up with the Japanese whisky scene might be familiar with the landmark passing of the industry's first set of formal regulations that have, after a century of whiskymaking in Japan, finally provided a definition to the incredibly popular category that is "Japanese Whisky". First made in the early 1920's, Japanese whiskies have seen its ups and downs, and it wasn't till the early 2000's that the category finally experienced its long awaited international recognition. But with great demand comes not so great actors, and so the fight was quickly on to set in place proper definitions that would ensure that consumers the world over would be assured that what they had just purchased or tasted was indeed authentic Japanese whisky - the definition of which in simple is a whisky that is fermented (with Japan drawn water, although the base grain can be imported), distilled, aged (for 3 years) and bottled in Japan. And whilst that seems simple and essential enough, there's just one problem - Japan loves its blended whiskies (hence you'll find Master Blenders in place of Master Distillers), and most blends require grain whiskies that Japan doesn't quite produce. Sure, the big distilleries do, as well as some of the longer standing craft distilleries or the better funded ones (usually owned by a parent that is already involved in Shochu or Sake making), but most other independent distilleries don't - the economics are completely different and way larger in scale, and ain't no one is going to be selling their grain whiskies to make your blending dreams a reality.

Yet, in order to be Japanese Whisky compliant, these distilleries require Japanese grain whisky that they can then blend with their Japanese malt whisky.

And that's where Yoshida Denzai (吉田電材蒸留所) comes into the picture.

Yoshida Denzai is firstly not a distiller or alcohol maker by any means - it's in fact first and foremost a machinery manufacturing company - and also it has big ambitions to not only show a more creative side of grain whiskies (because isn't American Bourbon a grain whisky after all?), but most importantly it wants to supply Japan's distilleries with not just authentic Japanese grain whisky, Yoshida Denzai wants to make 100% Japanese grain Japanese grain whisky. That's right, we're talking all the grains sourced locally, to make fully compliant Japanese grain whisky, that can be tailored for use by other Japanese distilleries.

Let's get into it!

Masashi Matsumoto.

Yoshida Denzai's whisky venture is the brainchild of one Masashi Matsumoto (松本 匡史 / Kouji Matsumoto), the third-generation chief of the Yoshida Denzai company. Matsumoto-san's grandfather had founded the machinery manufacturing company in Tokyo in 1940, with the company having had a long history of producing made-to-order machinery and industrial parts for its customers and thus has always had a streak of being highly skilled at devising innovative solutions through trial and error, as well as producing solutions from scratch and seeing it all the way to production. In particular, one such machine that it helps produce is the X-Ray machines used in hospitals, and thus has several factories around the country, with one in Niigata. Nevertheless, growing up third-generation Matsumoto-san had been much more interested in food production, having been particularly moved by a childhood experience where he had learnt of the famines in Ethiopia, and thus went on to study agriculture in university, eventually working outside the family's factory and unrelated to machinery manufacturing. Yet, as is common with many family businesses, Yoshida Denzai had no successor beyond Matsumoto-san, and thus he would return to helm the business. Through this time, Matsumoto-san would persist with his love for food and drinks, even achieving a whisky professional certification.

And so when the Covid pandemic had struck, Yoshida Denzai's particular transformer manufacturing business would slow down significantly just as the company had purchased a new factory with the goal of expanding the segment. With the outlook uncertain, Matsumoto-san having learnt that whisky exports had surpassed Sake exports in Japan for the first time ever in 2021, had thus decided that this new factory could instead be used to pursue a completely different industry.

Yoshida Denzai was thus conceived based on three core missions - 1. To add diversity to the landscape of Japanese whisky, where the distillery hopes to produce and showcase a different style of whisky than is already available; 2. To provide other distilleries with authentic Japanese grain whiskies tailor made to their requirements; and 3. To pursue 100% Japan sourced grains that are used to make its grain whiskies, with a particular additional goal of featuring more national or regional grains such as rice and buckwheat.

The seaside coastal town of Murakami, Niigata.

And so set in Murakami, Niigata, north of the city center and right along the coast flanking the Sea of Japan, Yoshida Denzai Grain Distillery would get underway - no name change was needed, with Matsumoto-san explaining that "the company name would be more interesting".

The first order of business was to get their hands on some grain - and in particular, local grains. Yoshida Denzai has highlighted that beyond moving eventually to sourcing all 100% of their grains locally, another key goal for them into the future is to make whiskies out of local specialty grains that will convey an even more unique yet distinctively Japanese flavour, with for example the use of rice and buckwheat. Nevertheless being new to distilling, the distillery has decided to start with a conventional Bourbon recipe - although it should be pointed out that Bourbon cannot be made outside of the United States - where a particular high-starch grain dent corn is required (as opposed to the typical high-sugar sweet corn that is eaten as food). Yet this proved to be an immediate challenge as the grain corn needed is sparsely grown in Japan given the low prices it commands, and of what little is produced, is typically used for animal feed, with Japan as a country heavily reliant on imported grain corn (99.99% is imported) from the United States and Brazil. Consequently the majority of whiskies made in Japan are produced with imported ingredients (although several craft distilleries have pushed for local ingredients as the next frontier), given the difficulty to acquire the same produce locally at scale, which should be noted as permissible by JSLMA regulations. 

Corn fields in Hokkaido.

Thankfully, Matsumoto-san would come to meet Koji Yanagihara, a farmer in Naganuma, Hokkaido, who had been trialing an experimental rotational farming practice so as to improve his crop yields. Yanagihara had wanted to solve a crop rotation disorder that his farm had experienced, where repeated planting of the same crop would ultimately result in a drop in yield, and thus had figured that if he had alternated by growing dent grain corn in between harvests, that this would help improve the condition. And where Matsumoto-san needed the corn, Yanagihara had needed someone to buy his corn, which thus made for an ideal match. This even has the added benefit of helping Matsumoto-san reduce the time taken for Yoshida Denzai to receive its agricultural supplies; where imported produce takes 6 months to arrive, it only takes several days for the corn to make its way from Hokkaido to Niigata, which in turn also mitigates crop spoilage, and is said to result in a richer and sweeter taste of Yoshida Denzai's whiskies as a result of the corn's freshness.

As it turns out, Yanagihara is but part of a broader picture of a Hokkaido that has over the past several decades become increasingly responsible for much of Japan's agricultural output, from potatoes to grapes, and of course corn. As a result of global warming, the northernmost Japanese prefecture in fact now produces 40% of Japan's total corn output (and also 90% of the country's Pinot Noir and Chardonnay), making it the latest viticulture hotspot for the country - and by extension an intensely exciting hotbed for distilleries looking to make grain whiskies and wineries aiming to produce world class pinot noir. Whilst it still of course is small in comparison to major agricultural countries from the US to China and Brazil, it is nevertheless significant for the country as it continues to amplify its desire to produce with local ingredients (the majority of what is produced in Hokkaido is transported out of the prefecture for use). Consequently, Yanagihara has formed the Hokkaido Shijitsu Corn Kumiai, a prefectural grain corn cooperative, that brings together over 144 farming households, which today has delivered over 80 tons of suitable dent corn to Yoshida Denzai's distillery (the distillery even returns the spent grains to farmers for use as natural fertiliser). 

Matsumoto-san has begun working with local farmers to establishing new supplies of local grains.

News of this pioneering distillery-cooperative would spur numerous farmers too who have since come forth to work with Yoshida Denzai in producing specific grains to be used for whiskymaking, thereby helping Yoshida Denzai reach closer to its goal (where previously distillers had little local grains to work with and thus relied on imports) and at the same time pushing forward growth and new opportunities in Hokkaido's agricultural industry. The local government too has recognised that the use of local grains in authentic Japanese whisky can help to spotlight local produce and raise its perception, and thus the  Agriculture and Forestry Division of Sekikawa Village Office has even stepped in to encourage local farmers to experiment into growing other possible grains such as rye. Today, Yoshida Denzai sources 70% of its grains locally, with a remaining 30% that is imported, which Matsumoto-san hopes to close the gap and become fully domestic into the future.

Yoshida Denzai has even developed its own grain processing machinery.

In the process of learning the ins and outs of utilising local grains to make whisky domestically, Yoshida Denzai would encounter something that is largely taken for granted - the malting of the grain. In Scotland (and broadly Europe), grain malting is a common process with dedicated facilities shared by numerous distilleries or maltsters who provide ready-to-use malted grain. Yet, in Japan, as most grain comes already malted upon arrival (especially for the larger distilleries), the facilities and equipment to do so is much more uncommon. As a result, Matsumoto-san would have the distillery employ a Monozukuri Yoshida Denzai initiative ("Monozukuri" meaning to "combine", here taken to mean providing a service that is end-to-end), not unlike Yoshida Denzai's mainstay business, where the distillery would not only source the grain, but will also offer malting services as well, thereby processing the grains to be ready for use. To do so, Yoshida Denzai has also developed its own malting machinery, so that it can take the entire process in-house, and also offer distillery customers a more bespoke solution as to what type of grain whiskies they might want to use for their blends. To that end, it's unsurprising that Yoshida Denzai has also built a dedicated barrel storage facility that can help distillery customers store and age the grain whiskies purchased from Yoshida Denzai.

With the goal of working 100% with domestically sourced grains, Yoshida Denzai has as mentioned invested into developing the infrastructure needed to process these grains (where it is currently scarce in Japan), and is now able to crush and freely blend any number of grains for a range of mashbills. The company takes one day to crush the grains and then one more day to carry out its saccharification process, also employing the use of mashing equipment from German company Cote, such as its stainless steel cooker. Fermentation, with soft groundwater drawn from the Arakawa River (ranked as one of the cleanest waters in Japan), is then carried for three days, conducted in six stainless steel tanks (5,800 litres), with distillation then carried out in a hybrid still manufactured by German company KOTHE. The hybrid still that Yoshida Denzai uses is inspired by (and almost identical) to that of Chicago-based American distiller Koval -a 5,000 litre helmet shaped pot still that is fitted with a seven-tier column still - and as such Koval's founder, Robert Bernecker, was even invited to fly down from the United States to observe Yoshida Denzai's first distillation in October 2022. The distillery explains that its choice of still came down to its ability to combine the functions of both a single still that can bring out flavour and aroma, along with the efficiency of a continuous still.

Currently a single production run is one week from raw ingredients to raw spirit, with each cycle yielding 1.5 - 3 barrels of spirit, where the annual production capacity is set at 100kL. As the distillery remains new to the task, its goal is to first distill 180 times a year, and to produce about 100,000 litres of spirit with for now dent corn (Hokkaido), rye (Hokkaido) and malted barley (Ehime and Niigata, and also Germany), as it gradually moves towards 250 distillation cycles a year with 100% domestically sourced grains. The distillery has stated that as of yet, they're still very much focused on kicking off with making a whisky based on classic American Bourbon recipes, and then using that as a barometer to tweaking the process to gain more experience and insight into the various profiles of whiskies that they are able to and would like to produce, and as such have experimented with various heating methods and mashbill components and ratios, and in particular with the different configurations of column stills to be used. Yoshida Denzai has also highlight the possibility of using different yeasts in the future as well.

Beyond providing other distilleries with customised Japanese grain whiskies, Yoshida Denzai has stated that it will produce a "Loud Grain" grain whisky that is designed to embody strong and bold flavours, and also a range of "Small Batch Grain" which will feature the wide variety of grain whiskies that Yoshida Denzai is able to produce. 

In early 2025, the first set of 1 Year Old Japanese single grain whiskies from Yoshida Denzai would start to hit shelves - and that's what we've got today!

Whisky Review: Yoshida Denzai Single Grain 1 Year Old | 吉田電材蒸留所シングルグレーン

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep Amber

Aroma: Warm and rich. Immediately very reminiscent of a high-proof American rye, but with a bit more elegance than aggression, and richer confectionary profile with some fleshy tree fruits. Opens with slightly sticky sour cherry fruitiness and candied orange peel. A distinctly herbal, spiced edge follows with a green peppercorn heat, fresh dill, and the dry, slightly bitter snap of anise seed. As it settles, the aroma feels more grounded and cereal-driven, with a dry, toasty nuttiness of rye bread crust and almond skin. Given a bit more time in the glass, it gradually shifts sweeter and more confectionary, with a deeper roasted corn, then thicker caramelised tones. Sweetness turns darker and stickier with apple juice, molasses and maple syrup, and the earlier sour cherry note feels more syrupy.

Taste: Rounded spices, rich and a delightfully velvety texture you wouldn’t expect in a 1-year-old. Opens with a quick, warming spice while a mouth-coating texture fills out quickly. A sweet, herbaceous depth builds, with a thick sweetness from molasses and baked apples, then a darker notes of rum-soaked raisins, and then followed by firmer, dry wood presence tightening things up, with an assertive cedar-like dryness and a persistent herbal note that reads as dried dill and fennel. As it sits, the palate leans into more sweet oak-driven notes, with a creamy, toasted edge from toasted coconut, raw walnuts and a sweet-savoury unagi glaze note with a touch of rancio sitting underneath the fruit and spice.

Finish: Dry and structured with a lightly savoury nutty grip. Some clean fibrous woodiness that reads as pencil shavings and a spice that keeps going with slightly bitter anise seeds, slightly tannic feel of almond skin accompanying long, drawn-out echoes of caramel and candied orange peels. Right at the end, a faint, dry cocoa-husk note.

My Thoughts

For a 1-year-old single grain, this is already very flavourful and unusually complete in structure, especially with the combination of spice, fruit, and that oily, rounded texture on the palate. The overall profile really does remind me of a high-proof American rye in its herb-and-spice signature, but it also has a deeper confectionary sweetness and a more polished fruit presence that gives it a slightly more controlled, co-equal balance between fruit and spice. The nose evolves the most clearly, moving from tart cherry and candied orange peel into a darker, roasted-corn and caramel direction, while the palate leans spicier and more savoury, showing cedar, fennel-like herb, toasted coconut, and even a small rancio-like walnut nuance that I wouldn’t normally expect at this age.

It’s bold, corn-and-rye forward, very much grain-led, and yet incredibly multi-dimensional. I’m so curious to watch Yoshida Denzai – more time in cask should help it deepen the flavours and smooth out the youthful edges. I’m so curious to see more from this rising distillery!

Kanpai!

@111hotpot