In 1918 a young Japanese chemist enrolled at Glasgow University to learn how whisky was actually made. He came home with a notebook, a Scottish wife, and a conviction that Japan’s whisky should be made somewhere cold and grey — which is why the distillery is twenty-five minutes from this port.
Masataka Taketsuru was born into a sake-brewing family and sent to Scotland by his employer to learn distilling. He studied chemistry at Glasgow, apprenticed at working distilleries, and filled two notebooks with everything he could observe.
He also met Jessie Roberta Cowan — Rita — a doctor’s daughter from Kirkintilloch. They married in 1920 against both families’ wishes and returned to Japan together.
Taketsuru helped build Japan’s first commercial distillery at Yamazaki, near Kyoto, in 1923. He disagreed with the site: he wanted somewhere cold, damp and misty, like Scotland. His employer wanted somewhere accessible to customers.
In 1934 he left, moved to Yoichi on the Hokkaido coast, and started again — with apple juice, because whisky needs years and the company needed revenue. The name Nikka comes from that: Dai Nippon Kaju, Great Japan Juice.
The stills at Yoichi are still heated by direct coal fire, shovelled by hand. Almost nowhere in the world still does this, including Scotland.
The distillery is open, free to enter, and unusually honest about itself. The kiln towers with their pagoda roofs, the coal-fired stills, the warehouses — and the house Taketsuru and Rita lived in, preserved.
Rita never returned to Scotland. She learned Japanese, taught English, was treated with suspicion during the war as a British national, and died in Japan in 1961. Their story was made into a national morning drama in 2014, after which visitor numbers here went vertical.
Twenty-five minutes by train from Otaru, along the coast. Entry is free; the tasting bar charges by the pour, and the aged Yoichi single malts are the reason to be there.
Trains are not frequent. Photograph the return timetable before you leave Otaru — this is the one plan in this port that has a real failure mode.
And fills two notebooks with distilling practice
Against both families’ wishes
And disagrees about the site
Starting with apple juice — hence Nikka
Coal-fired stills, still used
She never returned to Scotland
Take the train, drink the Yoichi single malt neat, and photograph the return timetable before you leave Otaru.
Because Masataka Taketsuru wanted a climate like Scotland’s — cold, damp and misty — and disagreed with his employer’s choice of a site near Kyoto. He left in 1934, moved to Yoichi on the Hokkaido coast, and funded the wait for whisky by selling apple juice, which is where the name Nikka comes from.
Yes, on a long call. It is about twenty-five minutes by train from Otaru and entry is free but reservation-required (book on Nikka’s site before you sail), with a tasting bar charging by the pour. Trains are infrequent, so photograph the return timetable before you leave — this is the one plan in this port with a genuine failure mode.
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