Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
In the conversation about Japanese craft whisky, certain names receive disproportionate attention relative to their production volume: Chichibu, Saburomaru, Kameda, the new Kyushu producers. Others, despite producing genuinely excellent single malt, remain less discussed than their quality warrants.
Okayama whisky, made at Miyashita Sake Brewery in Okayama Prefecture, falls into this second category. The brewery has been making sake since 1915, and the whisky production reflects the same approach: careful, traditional, unhurried.
What Okayama Tastes Like
Okayama single malt tends toward a gentle, approachable style — soft fruit, light malt, and a clean texture that reflects the brewery’s sake-making heritage. The water from Okayama’s rivers — fed from the mountains that separate the prefecture from the Seto Inland Sea basin — is softer than the water used at many Japanese distilleries, and this softness carries into the spirit.
The Sherry Cask expression adds dried fruit richness without losing the gentleness that defines the base style. It is the kind of whisky that asks nothing demanding of the drinker and rewards that ease with something genuinely pleasant.
Okayama is geographically adjacent to Hiroshima — it shares the Seto Inland Sea coastline and the same warm maritime climate. There is something appropriate about finding, in this whisky, a character that feels connected to the broader landscape of which Hiroshima is a part.
Okayama whisky expressions are available at Bar Little Happiness. Read the full Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/okayamawhiksy/
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