Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
“The way I live is cool enough, isn’t it?” he laughed — and I was completely captivated.
When I visited Saburomaru Distillery in Tonami, Toyama Prefecture, I expected to find an interesting craft distillery. What I found instead was something far harder to describe: a place where the word “impossible” seems to have been quietly removed from the vocabulary.
Japan’s Only All-Peat Distillery
Saburomaru Distillery holds a distinction that no other distillery in Japan can claim: it is the only one that uses 100% peat malt in every single mash. Not occasionally. Not for special releases. Every batch, every time.
Founded in 1952 as part of Wakatsuru Shuzo — a sake brewery with roots going back centuries — Saburomaru has spent decades quietly doing things its own way in the snow country of Toyama. The distillery sits in a region that receives some of the heaviest snowfall in Japan, and that extreme seasonal contrast shapes everything about how the whisky matures.
The Inventor-President Who Built His Own Pot Still
The heart of the Saburomaru story is President Inagaki Takahiko — a man who decided, when faced with the near-impossibility of sourcing a new pot still, to simply design and build one himself.
Working with Miyake Manufacturing — a specialist in Buddhist altar fittings, not distillation equipment — Inagaki led the creation of ZEMON, the world’s first pot still cast entirely from a zinc-lead alloy. The project was declared “impossible” by multiple experts. The technical challenges were real and formidable.
He did it anyway.
ZEMON was completed and installed. It produces a spirit with a heavier, more robust character than conventional copper stills — a quality that suits Saburomaru’s bold, heavily peated style perfectly.
“We Had Nothing — So We Had to Create Everything”
What strikes you most when you walk through Saburomaru is not the equipment, or even the whisky itself — it’s the philosophy that runs through every corner of the operation.
“Naku te tomodai” — “It’s fine that we don’t have it.” President Inagaki said this with a completely genuine smile when describing why he invented ZEMON rather than simply importing a still from Scotland.
For him, the constraint was not a problem to be solved. It was an invitation to create something that had never existed before.
This spirit of inventive necessity permeates everything at Saburomaru. The distillery has produced its own original yeast strains, experimented with unusual cask combinations, and pushed the boundaries of what “Japanese whisky” can mean — all from a small building in a snowy provincial town.
ZEMON, SAGOEMON, and the Bottles You Need to Know
The flagship expressions from Saburomaru include:
SABUROMARU series — the core range of heavily peated single malts, aged in various cask types and reflecting the distillery’s bold house style. The Saburomaru III, IV, and subsequent expressions have each built on the last, showing increasing complexity and confidence.
ZEMON — the expression made specifically to showcase the character of the zinc-alloy still, with a heavier, more brooding quality that sets it apart from anything else in Japanese whisky.
Saburomaru VIII STRENGTH — the latest release at time of writing, a cask strength expression that delivers the full power of Saburomaru’s peat-forward character without dilution.
What the Whisky Tastes Like
Saburomaru whisky is not subtle. This is peat — real peat, the kind that fills your nose before the glass is halfway to your face. But like all great peated whiskies, the smoke is a frame, not the whole picture. Behind it, you find dried fruits, a certain maritime mineral quality, and — with age — a richness that softens the edges without hiding the fire.
Visitors to Bar Little Happiness in Hiroshima can taste Saburomaru across multiple expressions, including rare bottles that rarely appear outside specialist bars. Mika has been stocking Saburomaru since the early days, and has personally visited the distillery to understand its story firsthand.
A Distillery Worth Making a Journey For
Saburomaru Distillery is located in Tonami, Toyama Prefecture — accessible by shinkansen to Shin-Takaoka station, then approximately 30 minutes by taxi or local transport. The distillery does offer tours for trade visitors and serious enthusiasts, though availability is limited.
If you’re traveling through the Hokuriku region — or if you’re a whisky traveler planning a route through Japan — Saburomaru is one of those places that changes how you think about what Japanese whisky can be.
And if you can’t make it to Toyama, the next best thing is to find a bar that carries it properly — one where the person pouring it has actually been there, talked to the people who made it, and can tell you what President Inagaki said when he laughed and said “naku te tomodai.”
Saburomaru Distillery bottles are available at Bar Little Happiness, Hiroshima. Read the full Japanese distillery report (in Japanese): little-happiness.jp/columns/saburomaru-distillery-report/
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Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
Open daily 7PM–1AM (Mon–Sat), until midnight Sunday
No cover charge. Walk-ins welcome.
english.little-happiness.jp