Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
The new make spirit that arrived at Bar Little Happiness from Tankyu Distillery in May 2026 told me something I did not expect: that a distillery opened less than two years ago, in a town I had never visited, had figured out something fundamental about how to make whisky.
The Distillery
Tankyu Distillery opened in August 2025 in Higashikawa-cho, a small town at the base of Mount Taisetsu in central Hokkaido — Japan’s northernmost island and the region with the most Scotch-like climate in the country. Cold winters, significant snowfall, and the long maturation seasons that the temperature differential between seasons creates.
The town itself has a distinction worth noting: Higashikawa is the only municipality in Japan with no public water supply. Every resident, every farmer, every business draws its water entirely from underground sources fed by snowmelt from the Taisetsu Mountains. The distillery’s process water is this same groundwater — named one of Japan’s Hundred Famous Waters in the Heisei era.
Tankyu is also Japan’s first public-private partnership craft distillery: the municipal government provides the land and infrastructure while the private founders manage the production. The co-founders are Joseph Cheung and Kit Cheung, who previously established Perfume Trees Gin in Hong Kong — a brand that won the World’s Best Gin Label Design award and multiple international gold medals. The Head Distiller is David Shay, who trained at Edradour Distillery in the Scottish Highlands and worked as Master Blender at a Speyside distillery.
The New Make: What I Tasted
I did not have the context of a distillery visit when the sample arrived — Tankyu contacted me directly, and I tasted with as much objectivity as that situation allows. These are my honest impressions.
The new make pours clear and clean at 63% ABV. On the nose, the immediate impression is creamy and lactate-forward — a softness that suggests the fermentation is doing exactly what it should, with the lactic complexity that wooden washbacks or extended fermentation tends to produce. Behind that, there is a mineral quality: the water, perhaps, or the specific barley character.
On the palate, the ABV announces itself but without aggression. There is grain-derived nuttiness at the core, clean texture without heaviness, and a length that indicates the spirit has structure to carry extended maturation.
My sense is that this is a new make designed to age. The style is not one that peaks young. Whatever the full first release looks like in 2028, this foundation is something to watch.
The Tankyu new make 2026 is available at Bar Little Happiness. Read the full Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/tankyu-distillery-new-pot-2026/
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