Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
The blender’s room at Saburomaru is not yet open to the public. When I visited in January 2026, I was brought there quietly, and I understood immediately why it is described as a sanctuary.
The walls are lined with sample bottles — hundreds of them — each representing a different cask, a different age, a different character of the same distillery’s peat-forward spirit. Arranged like puzzle pieces waiting to be assembled into something complete, they are the raw material of every Saburomaru release.
Two Kinds of Peat, One Distillery
Saburomaru’s house style is defined by peat — specifically, by the philosophy that peat is not a single thing but a family of flavours shaped by geography, climate, and the specific plants that formed the bog.
The distillery works with two peat sources:
Islay peat (from Scotland’s most famous whisky island): characterised by coastal, seaweed-tinged smoke with a longer, softer finish. Inagaki describes it as feminine — wrapping rather than striking.
Highland peat (from Scotland’s mainland interior): drier, earthier, with a more forceful, angular quality. The backbone rather than the embrace.
When these two are blended — as in the Saburomaru THE LOVERS expression — the result is what Inagaki describes as a kind of argument between equals, or as I heard it, something more like two confident personalities finding common ground. The cask-strength version makes the tension explicit; the standard expression softens it into something you could call harmony.
The Tarot Series
Each Saburomaru single malt release corresponds to a Major Arcana card from the tarot — a series that began in 2020 with 0: THE FOOL (a deliberate signal that this was a new beginning, starting from zero) and has continued through subsequent releases. The labels are designed by an artist from Toyama Prefecture, and the thematic link between each card’s meaning and the whisky’s character is considered carefully at the blending stage.
At the time of my visit, the series had reached VIII: STRENGTH — using Islay peat at 80 PPM, the same phenol level as VII: THE CHARIOT, which used Highland peat. Same intensity, entirely different expression. Same number, different world.
(Inagaki told me the artwork for the entire remaining series already exists. He said he would share it if I came back. I intend to.)
The 1960 Whisky
The story of why Inagaki returned to Saburomaru — and why he has built everything he has built — comes back to a single experience: tasting a whisky from 1960, distilled by his great-grandfather, that had survived in the warehouse through all the years of the distillery’s silence.
“It would be a terrible waste,” he said, “for this to disappear without anyone knowing it existed.”
That is why Re:COOPERAGE exists to support the whole industry, not just Saburomaru. That is why T&T TOYAMA was created to help small Japanese distilleries reach international markets. That is why the blender’s room holds samples going back years, being assembled patiently into expressions that will outlast everyone currently working on them.
The 1960 whisky taught Inagaki what a 50-year wait looks like in a glass. He is now making the decisions that will determine what the next 50 years look like.
Saburomaru bottles are available at Bar Little Happiness, Hiroshima, across multiple expressions including rare releases. Read the full Japanese series: little-happiness.jp/columns/saburomaru-distillery-report/
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