Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
In March 2026, I attended the Komoro Whisky Festival in Nagano Prefecture. I had booked the ticket not entirely knowing what to expect — Komoro Distillery was still pre-release, so no bottles existed to taste in advance. What I found there changed how I think about where Japanese whisky is going.
The Person Who Said “I’m In”
The story of Komoro Distillery begins with a three-hour online meeting between the distillery’s founder, Takataka Shimaoka, and Ian Chang — who was, at the time, still the most decorated blender in the Asian whisky industry after fifteen years at Kavalan.
Shimaoka presented his vision. Chang asked questions. By the end of the meeting, Chang had decided.
“I’m in.”
The reason was straightforward: Taiwan’s subtropical climate made aged-statement whisky — the kind that carries a declared number of years on the label — essentially impossible. Chang had spent his career making exceptional whisky under those conditions, but the constraint remained. Komoro, sitting at 910 metres above sea level on the slopes of Mount Asama in Nagano Prefecture, offered something different: cold winters, Scotch-like maturation rates, and the chance to build something that could carry its age with pride.
What I Tasted in March 2026
At the festival, I attended a cross-distillery seminar featuring Ian Chang alongside Kuronuma-san from Asaka Distillery and Ishihara-san from Kanosuke Distillery. The sample poured for tasting was a Komoro new make in a Ruby Port cask — under three years old, diluted to 46%.
I was not prepared for what I tasted.
The new-make character — the harsh, unfinished quality that almost all young craft distillery spirits carry — was virtually absent. The spirit was clean, precise, and already showing a clear flavour direction. Kuronuma-san from Asaka, himself a highly experienced distiller, said openly that maintaining that character at such dilution was remarkable.
I sat in the back of the room thinking: this person is a genius. Not because of what I knew about Ian Chang’s reputation — I knew it, of course — but because of what was actually in the glass.
The Artistic Conception of Komoro
Chang has described his approach to Komoro through a phrase that stays with me: “Artistic Conception.” He is not trying to make the loudest or most powerful whisky. He is trying to make whisky that evokes a feeling of being surrounded by forest, of moving through seasons, of something that shifts and breathes.
This is more than poetic language. It is a blending philosophy: one that treats balance not as a compromise between opposing flavours but as the primary goal from which everything else is derived. The raw spectrum of new makes produced at the distillery — different yeasts, different cask types, different cuts — are the palette. The blended result is the painting.
The KDI Ambition
Komoro is the flagship of Karuizawa Distillery Inc. (KDI), founded by Shimaoka with an explicit stated goal: to build Japan’s most significant independent whisky producer. The roadmap includes a second distillery in Furano, Hokkaido (in partnership with Seibu Group), plans for a third site in western Japan, and a logistics hub in Singapore for international distribution.
The model is not craft. It is ambition on the scale of Suntory and Nikka in their founding decades — a long-horizon investment in creating a new Japanese whisky institution, with Ian Chang’s creative and technical vision at its centre.
Komoro bottles have not yet been officially released at the time of writing. Bar Little Happiness will stock them when they become available. Read the full Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/komoro-distillery-ian-chang-kdi-ambition/
Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
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