Yuza Distillery: Yamagata's Rising Craft Whisky
Quick Takeaway
- Founded: 2018 by Kinryu Corporation, a Yamagata shochu maker that staked its entire company on making world class single malt whisky.
- Location: Yuza cho, Yamagata Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan coast at the foot of Mt. Chokai. Extreme 40°C annual temperature swings accelerate maturation.
- Production: Forsyths copper pot stills, Douglas fir washbacks, 105,000 liters per year. Only single malts, no world blends.
- JSLMA: Single malt releases are JSLMA compliant. The distillery has committed to producing only products that meet the Japanese Whisky standard.
- Availability: Very limited. Annual editions sell out immediately. JAL airline exclusives and lottery sales are the main channels.
Most craft distillery stories start the same way: a whisky lover chases a dream. Yuza’s story is different. This is a business survival story dressed in copper pot stills and Douglas fir.
Yuza is Yamagata Prefecture’s first and only whisky distillery, located in the small coastal town of Yuza cho at the base of Mt. Chokai. It is run by Kinryu, a company whose core business (making kourui shochu, the neutral spirit used in drinks like lemon sours) was staring down a demographic cliff. Domestic shochu sales had been declining since the mid 2000s. Ninety five percent of Kinryu’s revenue came from within Yamagata, a prefecture projected to lose roughly 30% of its population by 2045.
Rather than waiting for the inevitable, Kinryu president Masaharu Sasaki bet the company’s future on whisky. The estimated investment: 700 million yen upfront, plus 100 million per year in operating costs.
The Founding Story
Kinryu is not a single family business. It is a conglomerate of nine different sake breweries that merged in 1950. That meant Sasaki needed unanimous approval from nine different executives to move forward with a pivot to whisky. He got it, with one condition: do it right. Make whisky that can compete with the best the world has to offer.
The inspiration came at a distillers’ union meeting in Tokyo, where discussion turned to Chichibu’s Ichiro’s Malt winning Japanese Whisky of the Year. It proved that small craft operations could produce world class whisky. Sasaki spent three years scouting locations, making 17 trips to the Yuza area to observe all four seasons before committing to the site.
The distillery received its whisky making license from Japan’s National Tax Agency in September 2018 and began distilling in November 2018.
The TLAS Philosophy
Yuza Distillery operates under a concept they call TLAS:
Tiny. The site covers about 4,550 square meters, with the distillery itself occupying roughly 620 square meters. Annual output is just 105,000 liters, making it one of Japan’s smaller whisky operations.
Lovely. The building looks modest from the outside. This is not a showpiece distillery built for visitors. There are no tours, no gift shop.
Authentic. Every piece of equipment was chosen with guidance from Forsyths, the Scottish coppersmith. Production follows traditional Scottish methods, with the key difference being a deliberate commitment to only release products that meet the JSLMA definition of Japanese Whisky. No new make spirits. No world blends.
Supreme. The single condition from those nine executives: the whisky must be world class.
Location and Terroir
Yuza cho sits on the Sea of Japan coast in Yamagata’s Shonai Plain, a rice growing region historically connected to the Kitamaebune shipping routes that carried grain to Kyoto and Osaka. Behind the town rises Mt. Chokai, a volcanic peak standing about 16 kilometers from the coast with summit snow depths reaching 30 meters in winter.
The climate is the defining factor. Average temperatures swing by roughly 40°C over the course of a year, from deep winter cold to humid summer heat. This extreme seasonal range drives rapid interaction between the spirit and the wood, and the distillery estimates that five years of maturation in Yuza produces roughly the same wood influence as eight years in Scotland.
The water comes from the town’s municipal supply. That might sound unremarkable, but Yuza cho’s underground water was recognized in 1996 by Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism as one of the country’s top 100 water sources. Natural springs fed by Mt. Chokai’s rainfall and snowmelt permeate through the ground, providing clean, mineral rich water ideal for whisky production. The distillery uses 22 tons per hour for cooling alone; the town provides up to 50 tons per hour.
Production
Forsyths of Scotland was involved in nearly every aspect of the distillery’s setup, from planning and equipment sourcing to test distillations and staff training. The equipment is small but purposeful:
Mash tun: 5,000 liter semi lauter style, stainless steel.
Washbacks: Five, made from Canadian Douglas fir. Sasaki personally selected the wood in Canada. The wooden washbacks add complexity to fermentation through the presence of lactic acid bacteria, contributing specific aroma and flavor characteristics that stainless steel cannot replicate.
Wash still: Forsyths, 5,000 liters, indirect steam heating, straight head shape.
Spirit still: Forsyths, 3,400 liters, indirect steam heating, with a bulge. The downward sloping lyne arms are comparatively long.
Warehouses: Two dunnage style.
Batch size: One ton of malt per batch. The malt is primarily non peated, though the distillery has done limited peated runs. They use Scottish barley.
One of the most distinctive aspects of Yuza is its team. Rather than hiring industry veterans, Sasaki deliberately recruited two young women from the local Yamagata University with no prior experience in spirits production. His reasoning: bringing in an expert risked having that person’s established style dominate. Starting with a blank slate, combined with Forsyths’ training program, allowed the team to develop Yuza’s own character from scratch.
The Releases
Yuza has held firm to a policy of releasing nothing prematurely. There were no new make or new born products sold to the public, and they have committed to only releasing single malts. All releases so far have been NAS (no age statement), which is typical for young craft distilleries building stock.
First Edition 2022
Yuza
Yuza First Edition 2022
The debut release. Limited to 8,500 bottles, bottled at cask strength (61% ABV) from bourbon barrels filled between November 2018 and January 2019, the very first months of distillation. Released in February 2022 at ¥16,500.
Despite being just over three years old, the First Edition earned a gold medal upon release. Reviews consistently describe a surprisingly smooth cask strength whisky with honey, vanilla, and stone fruit on the nose, bourbon sweetness and tropical fruit on the palate, and a long warming finish. When water is added, the fruity character intensifies and the bourbon barrel influence becomes more prominent.
Second Edition 2022
Yuza
Yuza Second Edition 2023
Released in early October 2022, the Second Edition is another cask strength single malt bottled at 62% ABV. Like the First Edition, it draws from bourbon casks filled during the distillery’s earliest production runs (February to July 2019) and includes a lightly peated component. Reviewers note tropical fruit, melon, and vanilla on the nose with a smooth, rounded palate that builds on the character established by the First Edition.
Third Edition (YUZA 2023)
Yuza Edition 2023 continued the annual series. Japanese Whisky Dictionary described fresh and sweet aromas of pear and apple with a biscuit like quality. The Third Edition represents the distillery’s style becoming more defined as the whisky gains age.
Sherry Cask Finish 2023
Yuza Sherry Cask Finish 2023 demonstrated the distillery’s developing cask management program. This expression takes bourbon barrel aged whisky and finishes it in sherry casks, adding dried fruit and richer sweetness to the base spirit.
Asahimachi Wine Barrel
Yuza Asahimachi Wine Barrel uses barrels from Asahimachi, a town in Yamagata known for its wine production. This is a local terroir expression, connecting the whisky to the agricultural character of the region.
JAL Airline Exclusives
Yuza has developed an ongoing partnership with Japan Airlines. The JAL Exclusive series, now in its ninth release, is available only on international flights. The 2025 edition uses bourbon cask whisky aged over four years with an additional six months finishing in sherry casks. It is offered at 48% ABV in both 700ml (¥21,000, First and Business Class only) and 180ml (¥5,600, all classes) formats.
This JAL partnership gives Yuza international exposure that its tiny production volume could not support through conventional distribution channels.
JSLMA Status
Yuza has taken an unambiguous stance on Japanese Whisky standards. The distillery produces only single malts using Scottish barley and local water, distilled and matured entirely in Japan. Their Yuza First Edition 2022 and Yuza Second Edition 2022 are confirmed JSLMA compliant, as are the Edition 2023, Sherry Cask Finish, and Asahimachi Wine Barrel releases.
The distillery’s official position, stated on their website, is that they focus on producing products that meet the definition of Japanese Whisky. In a market where many new distilleries supplement production with imported stock to generate faster revenue, Yuza chose to wait. They refused to release new make, new born, or blended products containing imported whisky during the years before their first single malt was ready.
How Yuza Compares
Yuza belongs to a group of Japanese craft distilleries that launched in the late 2010s, each carving out a distinct identity:
Chichibu (Saitama, 2008) pioneered the modern Japanese craft whisky movement with a larger cult following and collector market. Chichibu The Peated showcases their heavily peated style, a contrast to Yuza’s fruit forward character.
Akkeshi (Hokkaido, 2016) draws Islay comparisons with its coastal peated whisky and 24 Solar Terms series. Akkeshi Hakuro represents their smoky, maritime style. Yuza is lighter and more elegant.
Kanosuke (Kagoshima, 2017) brings shochu heritage to whisky making with an oceanfront location in southern Japan. Kanosuke Single Malt shares Yuza’s fruit forward tendencies but comes from a completely different climate.
Where Yuza stands apart is the purity of its origin story. No whisky heritage, no industry experts, no shortcuts. A shochu company facing extinction, a bet on quality, and a team of young women from a local university learning to distill from Forsyths’ training manuals.
Visiting
Yuza Distillery is not open to the public and has no announced plans to offer tours. This is a working production facility, not a visitor attraction.
The town of Yuza itself is accessible by train from Sakata (the nearest city of significant size, about 30 minutes by car). The area offers Mt. Chokai hiking, natural hot springs, and Sea of Japan coastline. Sakata is historically known as a port town on the Kitamaebune shipping route.
Address: 20 Kakujida, Yoshiide, Yuza machi, Akumi gun, Yamagata 999-8302, Japan.
Where to Buy
Yuza’s 105,000 liter annual output makes availability extremely limited. In Japan, editions are typically allocated through lottery systems. Internationally, specialist Japanese whisky retailers such as Dekanta occasionally stock Yuza releases, and auction houses are a secondary market source.
The JAL airline exclusive series remains the most accessible way to try Yuza for international travelers passing through Japanese airports or flying JAL internationally.
FAQ
Is Yuza whisky JSLMA compliant?
Yuza’s single malt releases (First Edition, Second Edition) are JSLMA compliant Japanese whisky. The distillery has committed to producing only single malts using Scottish barley and local water, distilled and matured entirely on site. Some blended or special editions in our database have not been independently verified for compliance.
Can you visit Yuza Distillery?
Yuza Distillery is not open to the public and has no plans to offer tours. This is a small production facility focused entirely on whisky making, not visitor experiences. The town of Yuza itself is worth visiting for Mt. Chokai hiking and the Sea of Japan coastline.
How much does Yuza whisky cost?
Yuza’s annual single malt editions are in the premium to luxury price tier. The First Edition 2022 launched at ¥16,500 in Japan. Later editions and special cask finishes have commanded higher prices, with secondary market prices rising as demand outpaces the distillery’s small 105,000 liter annual output.
What does Yuza whisky taste like?
Yuza’s house style leans fruity and elegant. The First Edition (61% ABV, bourbon barrel) shows honey, vanilla, and stone fruit on the nose with a smooth bourbon sweetness on the palate. The Second Edition (62% ABV, cask strength) builds on that character with additional tropical fruit and developing complexity.
Where can you buy Yuza whisky?
Yuza is extremely limited production. In Japan, editions are often sold by lottery. Internationally, specialist Japanese whisky retailers like Dekanta and auction houses are the main sources. JAL passengers can find exclusive Yuza bottlings on international flights, with the JAL Exclusive series now in its ninth release.