Venture Whisky’s Chichibu Distillery opened in 2008, and at the time was Japan’s first independent distillery to open in over three decades. Its success since then cannot be understated. The distillery and founder Ichiro Akuto are recognized both inside and outside of Japan as producing some of the best Japanese whisky available today.

Chichibu Distillery was established by Venture Whisky, whose founder Ichiro Akuto’s comes from a family that has been making alcohol for 21 generations. Akuto Shuzo began making sake way way back in 1625 in Chichibu, Saitama.
Akuto-san’s grandfather is responsible for the company’s pivot to whisky. Isouji Akuto moved the company’s headquarters to Hanyu, also in Saitama, in 1941. Akuto Shuzo was renamed to Toa Shuzo, and in 1948 they launched their whisky business with “Golden Horse,” using imported whisky. Hanyu would of course later begin distilling their own whisky.

Though Ichiro-san originally had no intention of taking over the family business, he quit his sales job at Suntory at age 28 to help with Toa Shuzo’s whisky operation from 1995. That didn’t last long though — due to a downturn in Japan’s whisky market, Toa Shuzo filed for bankruptcy in 2000. Four years later, the company and its assets, including its whisky stocks, were sold altogether.

With a poor outlook for whisky in Japan overall, the new owners had no interest in Hanyu Distillery’s aging stocks. They planned to discard them. Venture Whisky was launched by Ichiro-san to spare the results of his family’s labor–both the whisky and the equipment–from going to waste.

With backing from Fukushima’s Sasanokawa Shuzo, this move by Venture Whisky proved essential for Japan’s craft whisky scene. It eventually led to the iconic Card Series, and provided the Chichibu Distillery with an arsenal of aged whiskies from which they could build blends.

Ichiro-san also feels it is imperative to replenish the supply of whisky so that it can be enjoyed by future generations. At Venture Whisky, he went on to create the Chichibu Distillery to assure that Japanese craft whisky will continue to flow for many more years to come.