Sasanokawa Shuzo was issued Tohoku’s first whisky-making license in1946. It was recently reborn and refurbished in 2016 as the AsakaDistillery. Today we take a look at what to expect from this historicalmaker. Asaka Distillery isn’t completely new. Behind the distillery is acompany called Sasanokawa Shuzo, who has been in the alcohol businesssince 1765. In 1946, they jumped into whisky production — or at leastwhat “whisky production” meant in Japan in those days. The company hittheir stride in the 1980s with Cherry Whisky, relying heavily onimported Scotch whisky and molasses-based spirit. They were Tohoku’spremier “Ji-whisky” producer at the time. After that particular whiskyboom was over, Sasanokawa Shuzo more or less called it quits ondistilling their own whisky at the Yamazakura Distillery. They hadplenty of stock maturing on-site as well. Even though they weren’tmaking their own whisky at the time, the company famously came to therescue of Ichiro Akuto, who needed a place to store about 400 casks ofHanyu in 2004.