Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
There is a sentence that, once you hear it, makes Asaka Distillery impossible to forget. It was spoken by the founder of a competing whisky company to the man who would go on to save one of Japan’s most beloved whisky legacies.
“This would be a loss for the industry. Use my warehouse.”
That sentence is the foundation of the Ichiro’s Malt story, and Asaka Distillery is where the story continues.
The Rescue
When the Hanyu Distillery — operated by the Akuto family in Saitama Prefecture — was forced to close, it left behind thousands of casks of mature whisky with no home. The surviving stocks were extraordinary: deep, complex single malts from decades of careful production. Without a solution, they would have been destroyed.
The solution came from an unexpected source: the owner of a rival whisky operation offered his warehouse and his support. Without that intervention, the Hanyu stocks would have been lost. With it, they became the foundation of Ichiro’s Malt — now one of the most globally sought-after Japanese whisky brands.
Ichiro Akuto, the family’s heir, went on to build Chichibu Distillery in Saitama, establish Ichiro’s Malt as an internationally recognised brand, and rebuild a whisky legacy that had seemed finished.
Asaka: The Next Chapter
Asaka Distillery, in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, is operated by Sasanokawa Shuzo — a sake and shochu producer whose own history stretches back to 1765. It was established to create a new source of single malt that could carry the Ichiro’s Malt philosophy into the future.
The distillery’s Head Distiller, Kuroha-san, joined from a background in brewing science and has brought a rigorous, methodical approach to production. At the 2026 Komoro Whisky Festival, Kuroha-san participated in a three-distillery cross-talk alongside Ian Chang and Ishihara-san from Kanosuke — and his quiet technical authority in that conversation stayed with me.
Asaka has won significant international recognition, including medals at the World Whiskies Awards. The house style is approachable but with real depth — a reflection of a distillery that started with very clear ideas about what it wanted to make.
Asaka Distillery whisky is available at Bar Little Happiness. Read the full Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/asaka/
Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
Open Mon–Sat 7PM–12:30AM, Sun 7PM–midnight
No cover charge. Walk-ins welcome.
english.little-happiness.jp