About
Located in Tamba Sasayama, Hyogo Prefecture at ~300m altitude surrounded by Tamba Forest. Operated by Kizakura, a beloved sake brewery (first local brewer in Kyoto, 1995). Whisky license obtained 2018, first sales spring 2022. Saccharification done at Fushimi craft brewery, then wort transported 1.5 hours to Tamba for fermentation and maturation. Uses bourbon, new oak, and sherry casks. Plans for Mizunara oak barrels. 30,000L annual target. Single malt releases winning awards.
Production Details
The Kizakura Tamba Tale
In the highlands of Tamba Sasayama, three hundred meters above sea level, the Tamba Forest cradles Japan's youngest whisky ambition. Here, where ancient cedars have watched centuries pass, Kizakura Co., Ltd. made a decision in 2018 that would stretch their brewing legacy beyond sake's familiar boundaries.
The company had already broken ground once before—becoming Kyoto's first local brewer in 1995, their sake earning the devotion of a city that measures tradition in millennia. But whisky demanded different patience, different precision. The highland spring water that flows through Tamba carried the same mineral whispers that had blessed their rice wines, yet now it would serve a longer conversation between grain and wood.
The stillhouse tells the story of modern Japanese monozukuri—the relentless pursuit of craft perfection. Each morning, wort travels an hour and a half from their Fushimi craft brewery, a liquid pilgrimage through Hyogo's rolling landscape. What begins as sweet mash in Kyoto's ancient brewing quarter completes its transformation here, where fermentation tanks hum against the forest's silence.
Bourbon barrels stand sentinel alongside new oak and sherry casks, their staves breathing with the highland air. Soon, Mizunara oak will join them—Japan's native wood adding its distinctive character to the maturation dance. Thirty thousand liters annually: not the thunderous output of Scotland's giants, but the measured ambition of craftsmen who understand that excellence cannot be rushed.
By spring 2022, four years after obtaining their whisky license, the first bottles emerged from this mountain sanctuary. Awards followed—recognition that the marriage of Scottish tradition and Japanese precision had found its voice in these Tamba hills.
The forest watches still, as patient as the whisky sleeping in its wooden chambers. Each barrel holds not just distilled grain, but the concentrated essence of a place where sake brewers dared to dream in malt, where highland springs flow toward an uncertain but promising future.