Fuji Gotemba Distillery (Kirin Distillery)

In August 1972, Kirin Seagram Co., Ltd. was established through a joint venture between Kirin Beer (Japan), JE Seagram (U.S.A.), and Seabass Brothers (U.K.), and Fuji Gotemba Distillery was established in August 1973.

Fuji Gotemba Distillery has been particular about the production of “Grain Whisky” using corn and wheat as raw materials for whisky. Continuous distillers are commonly used to manufacture grain whisky. Fuji Gotemba Distillery makes full use of three types of continuous distillers, “multi-column”, “kettle”, and “dubber”, to create a variety of grain whiskys.

As a typical whisky, there was “Mt. Fuji foot barrel ripening sake 50°”, but due to demand that exceeded expectations from 2018, it became difficult to supply the raw sake necessary for production, and it sold out at the end of March 2019. No successor products were released, but the “Mt. Fuji Foot Signature Blend”, which was released in 2017, began to be generally distributed in the domestic market from 2018, and is now sold as a current product.

In 2016, “Fuji Gotemba Distillery Single Grain Whisky AGED 25 YEARS SMALL BATCH” won the “World’s Best Grain Award” at the World Whisky Awards 2016. On March 31,2017, Jota Tanaka, master blender at Kirin Distillery Fuji Gotemba Distillery, won the World’s Top Prize in the Icons of Whisky Master Distillery and Master Blender Category. On March 27, 2020, Kirin Single Grain Whisky Fuji 30 years won the World’s Best Grain Award at the World Whisky Awards 2020.