Tasting the Shirakawa 1958, the world’s rarest single malt Japanese whisky, is like tasting a snapshot in time. — Photos: Handout
It is not very often that one gets to taste a slice of whisky history. But that is just what you’ll get with the Shirakawa 1958, the world’s rarest Japanese single malt whisky.
A moniker like that does not come lightly, and the Shirakawa 1958 does have a fascinating history and story to go with it.
To find out more, I recently met with Scott Adamson, global brand ambassador and whisky blender for the Tomatin distillery, which is owned by Japanese beverage conglomerate Takara Shuzo.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be working in whisky for more than 10 years now and studied its history as well. For me, this is probably the most fascinating spirits release that I’ve ever come across. The story is truly incredible,” he says to me off the bat during our interview in Kuala Lumpur recently.
Wait, Tomatin Distillery? What does a Scotch whisky distillery over 3,000km away from Japan have to do with a rare Japanese whisky?
Well, for starters, Tomatin is actually the first Scotch distillery to be owned by a Japanese company, when Takara Shuzo acquired it way back in 1986. And secondly, it was Tomatin’s managing director, Stephen Bremner, who was instrumental in uncovering the Shirakawa 1958.
The forgotten distillery
The Shirakawa 1958 is the only official bottling of whisky from this long-lost Japanese distillery. — HandoutAccording to Adamson, around the 1950s and 1960s, Takara Shuzo used to make its own blended Japanese whiskies, and one of the components used was probably a malt whisky made by a small distillery called Shirakawa in the Fukushima Prefecture. This distillery was built in 1939 by Daikoku Budoshu and purchased by Takara Shuzo in 1947.
“From my understanding, Shirakawa was one of the first five distilleries, or maybe even the third whisky distillery in Japan,” he says. “The distillery started in 1939 and operated for about six and a half decades, and was eventually closed. It was later demolished in 2003.
“Over that time, Shirakawa would have produced a wide variety of spirits, but between 1951 and 1969, it made single malt whisky. So during that 18-year period, over half a century ago, this unknown distillery produced single malt Japanese whisky.”
Now here’s the kicker – Shirakawa was never bottled as a single malt, and Adamson reckons that every single drop of Shirakawa was “destined for blending”, up to the point where they stopped making whisky, presumably to focus on making other spirits, like shochu instead.
“They moved away from whiskey making in the late 1960s. The distillery closed by the early 2000s and was demolished,” Adamson says.
“All traces of Shirakawa were gone, and slowly, over time, the number of people that were even aware that this distillery had ever made single malt whisky dwindled to a point where nobody was even aware that this distillery had ever existed.
“If you look at Japanese whisky history books, Shirakawa up until now has been a footnote at best. Nobody really knew what went on there. and no one knew what Shirakawa’s single malt tasted like... until now.”
Treasure hunters
This is where the Tomatin connection comes in. “Our managing director Stephen Bremner, who has been working with Takara Shuzo for over 20 years, learned that they used to have their own distillery that made malt whisky,” Adamson explains.
“Every time he met with a colleague from Japan, he would ask whether there was a possibility of any stock left from that distillery, but was repeatedly met with a ‘no’, or just a reluctance to really look into it.”
Then in 2018, Bremner met with a new colleague who told him there were rumours of a parcel of whisky from Shirakawa left somewhere. And so the hunt for this treasure trove began. He started by tracking down former employees and interviewing them, but many of them had only worked at the distillery in the 1980s, and had no knowledge of the whisky.
“We then started going through all of Takara Shuzo’s archives, where we were able to find old records from Shirakawa,” Adamson says.
Finally, in 2019, they hit the mother lode – a single container simply marked “Shirakawa 1958, malt whisky” was found, housed in a Takara Shuzo warehouse in Kyushu, almost a thousand kilometers away from the original site of the distillery.
“The most incredible thing about this whisky is the story sounds almost too good to be true!” Adamson says. “This was a single parcel of malt whisky from a lost, forgotten Japanese distillery which was distilled in 1958, enough for just 1,500 bottles. So there will only ever be one bottling of Shirakawa and this is it!”
Lost in time
All the same, there’s still so much of this whisky that remains a mystery. What is known is that the spirit had been aged in casks, before being transferred into ceramic jars at the distillery, and finally, into stainless steel tanks at Kyushu, where it was completely untouched and forgotten about until now.
Unfortunately, there is no way to be certain of what kind of casks the whisky was first matured in, though Adamson speculates that it would probably have been aged in Japanese Mizunara oak casks.
“We can’t be 100% sure it was aged in Mizunara, but the whisky does have all the notes you would expect from a Mizunara-aged whisky – the incense note, with a kind of cedar and floral element that you don’t get from other types of oak,” he says.
Adamson adds that it is also quite delicate, and has a balance of many subtle flavours, from tropical fruits to even having a slight smoky side, despite it not being a peated whisky. He also reckons that it was probably made with domestically-grown Japanese barley, which was more commonly used at the time.
“So, here you have a whisky from Japan, made from Japanese barley, and probably matured in Japanese Mizunara oak casks. It’s really something you will never get, even today,” he said. “It is bottled at its natural strength of 49% ABV as well, because with a whisky like this, we were definitely not going to adulterate it in any way! Hence, this is presented the way we found it.”
A taste of history
Of course, you can have the rarest or oldest whisky in the world, but it would be for naught if the liquid itself doesn’t measure up. Fortunately, the flavour of Shirakawa 1958 more than lives up to the hype.
Acclaimed whisky writer Dave Broom gave the following tasting notes. On the nose, he got “resinous, slight dry earth, dried citrus peels, a hint of wax... a drop of water makes it more vibrant and also shows clear maturity as well as a hint of incense”.
“The palate is expansive with a succulent texture and hints of fragrant grass,” he continues. “Fruits emerge in the middle. Layered, spiced, and dry. Water brings out ash from an incense burner, a satisfying mouthfeel and surprisingly perky acidity.”
And finally, Broom found it to be “nicely balanced and persistent on the finish which picks up mint flavouring and makes it more camphor-like”.
Adamson concurs, saying that it is one of the best whiskies he has ever tried in his life. “It is truly outstanding. This is the earliest single vintage of Japanese single malt whisky available. Six decades later, you still get this big, old, meaty whisky, with incredible delicacy to it, as well as a fine balance of flavour,” he adds.
This year being the 100th anniversary of Japanese whisky making, it is also fitting that the world actually gets to try arguably the rarest and earliest example of Japanese single malt whisky.
“We’re proud to have been able to discover and tell the story of this forgotten Japanese distillery,” Adamson said. “Shirakawa 1958 is like a time capsule – a snapshot in time. That’s what tasting this whiskey is like – we’re tasting something that does not exist in any other form or in any other realm. So this is truly an incredible whisky.”
Shirakawa 1958 is available in Malaysia and retails for RM138,888. For more information, email Terence Tan at terence.tan@drinksconnexion.com.my.
