Hakushu Bourbon Barrel

Hakushu distillery was built by Japanese giant Suntory in 1973 - fifty years after sister distillery Yamazaki - in a mountain forest in Japan’s Southern Alps, and was equipped with six large identical stills. In 1977 another six of the same stills were added in a new stillhouse (Hakushu 2). A third stillhouse (Hakushu 3) was built in 1981 with twelve stills of different shapes and sizes, and both Hakushu 1 & 2 were closed down soon afterwards.

Hakushu has 18 wooden washbacks and was expanded to 16 pot stills in 2014 to make a stylistically diverse range of malt whiskies for Suntory’s famous blends. Hakushu’s single malt whisky was bottled for the first time in the mid-1990s and was greeted with acclaim in Europe in the early years of this century. Hakushu 1 remains in mothballs and Hakushu 2 was demolished in 2006, but Hakushu 3 added a grain distillation facility in 2010, raising the exciting possibility of a future Hakushu single blended whisky.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.