Saburomaru Distillery (Wakatsuru Shuzo)

Wakatsuru Shuzo Co., Ltd., which operates the Saburomaru Distillery, is a sake brewery with a very long history in the Hokuriku area, which began producing sake in Saburomaru Village, Tonami-gun, Toyama Prefecture in 1862.

After the end of World War II, in order to overcome the difficult situation, we independently researched distilled spirit production and obtained a whisky production license in 1952. Since 1953, we have been selling Sunshine whisky in Toyama Prefecture.

In 2016, more than 60 years after the first whisky construction, the distillery was also aging. “We can’t let hokuriku’s only distillery and the whisky-making that has continued so far be cut off. So, we launched the Saburomaru Distillery Renovation Project and challenged crowdfunding to secure funds. In 2017, Saburomaru Distillery renovated its buildings and manufacturing facilities and started again as a whisky distillery with the support of 38,255,000 yen, far exceeding the target amount of 25 million yen, in response to the passion for whisky making that it has been protecting for more than 60 years and the challenge of growing Toyama’s whisky into the world’s whisky.

In 2019, we developed zemon, the world’s first cast distiller, in joint development with Oigo Manufacturing Co., Ltd., a master craftsman of bon bell making.