About
Distillery in Hatsukaichi near Hiroshima, close to the famous Miyajima shrine island. Evolved from a century-old spirits company (formerly Chugoku Jozo). Produces both single malt whisky and craft gin. Uses local Hiroshima ingredients and aims to express Setouchi regional character.
Production Details
The Sakurao Tale
The sacred torii of Miyajima rises from Hiroshima Bay just kilometers away, its vermillion gate marking the threshold between worlds. Here in Hatsukaichi, where the Seto Inland Sea meets ancient mountains, another kind of transformation began in 2018.
Sakurao Distillery stands as the newest chapter in a story that began a century earlier. The Chugoku Jozo company had spent generations mastering the alchemy of spirits, their hands already intimate with fermentation and distillation when whisky fever swept through Japan. When they finally committed to single malt, they carried forward not just equipment and expertise, but a deep understanding of their place.
Underground water rises from sources near Miyajima island, the same waters that have blessed this sacred landscape for millennia. It flows into copper vessels where Scottish tradition meets Setouchi sensibility—that particular character of the inland sea region, where salt air mingles with mountain mist. The distillery doesn't fight this environment; it embraces it, weaving local Hiroshima ingredients into both whisky and craft gin production.
This is monozukuri in its truest form—not mere manufacturing, but the patient art of making things with purpose and place. Each decision reflects the Japanese approach to whisky: respectful of Scottish heritage yet unafraid to express regional identity. The stills hum with the knowledge that great whisky cannot be rushed, that harmony emerges only when tradition, terroir, and time align.
Steam rises from the stillhouse while across the water, pilgrims still journey to Miyajima's floating shrine. Both pursuits require faith—in process, in place, in the slow revelation of something greater than its parts. The whisky resting in Sakurao's warehouses carries the essence of this coastal borderland, where sacred and secular have always danced together.
Five years is nothing in whisky time, but everything in intention. Sakurao's barrels hold more than new make spirit; they hold the distilled character of Setouchi itself, waiting to emerge.