About
First whisky-licensed distillery in Niigata City, founded by Ken Usami who also established Niigata Beer craft brewery on the same site 20+ years earlier. Whisky license obtained 2017, first Shinobu Whisky launched 2018. Signature technique: finishing all expressions in mizunara oak casks. 'The Shin' 10 Year Old won Gold at DB & SB Autumn Blind Tasting. Exports to US, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Europe, Australia, Canada. Leverages Niigata's sake-making heritage of exceptional water.
Production Details
The Shinobu Tale
In the snow country of Niigata, where winter blankets stretch endlessly white and the Shinano River cuts through rice paddies that have fed Japan for centuries, Ken Usami made a choice that would reshape his legacy. The year was 2017, and the craft brewer who had spent two decades perfecting beer on this same plot of land decided to chase something older, something that would require the patience his ancestors understood.
Niigata's water had made its reputation long before Usami arrived. Here, where the Japan Alps meet the Sea of Japan, snowmelt filters through granite and volcanic rock, emerging with a purity that sake masters have revered for generations. The same water that creates some of Japan's finest rice wine now flows into copper stills, carrying forward a tradition of liquid excellence that runs deeper than any distillery's foundation.
When Usami obtained his whisky license in 2017 and launched the first Shinobu expressions in 2018, he became keeper of Niigata City's first whisky flame. But this was no sudden pivot—it was evolution. Twenty years of brewing had taught him to read water like scripture, to understand how Niigata's terroir speaks through fermentation. The transition from grain to grain, from beer to whisky, felt less like departure than homecoming.
The distillery's signature lies not in its stills but in its finishing touch. Every expression sleeps its final dreams in mizunara oak, that most Japanese of woods. Where Scottish tradition might end with sherry or bourbon barrels, Shinobu whisky finds its voice in the native oak that grows wild in these mountains, imparting flavors that speak of sandalwood and incense, of temples and tea ceremonies.
The gold medal that 'The Shin' 10 Year Old claimed at international tastings proved what Usami suspected—that Niigata's gift for liquid craft extends beyond sake, beyond beer, into the realm of aged spirits. Now bottles bearing the Shinobu name travel to Hong Kong and Singapore, to Europe and Australia, carrying with them the essence of this snow country.
In a land where monozukuri—the art of making things with pride and dedication—shapes every craft, Shinobu stands as testament to patience rewarded, to water honored, to tradition extended rather than abandoned.