Shirakawa 1958 Single Malt Japanese Whisky 70cl

The World's Rarest Japanese Whisky Rediscovered!

Shirakawa 1958 is a single malt whisky from the lost Japanese distillery, Shirakawa, which was located 200km North of Tokyo, Japan. The whisky produced was rumoured to be exquisite, but destined only for blending and never to be captured as a single malt until now, with collaboration between Tomatin Distillery and Takara Shuzo. This remarkable and incredibly rare expression will be the only official single malt bottling from Shirakawa Distillery and is the earliest single vintage Japanese whisky ever bottled!

"There are no known examples of Japanese Whisky claiming to be from a single vintage that predates Shirakawa 1958" confirms Stefan Van Eycken, the pre-eminent authority on the world of Japanese whisky and distilling.

The Shirakawa Distillery was built in the Fukushima prefecture, in 1939 by Daikoku Budoshu and purchased by Takara Shuzu in 1947. Operating for nearly 6 and a half decades, it produced malt whisky between 1951 and 1969, one of the first distilleries in Japan to do so. The vast majority of the whisky produced was used in Takara Shuzo's flagship 'King' blended whisky brand. The Shirakawa Distillery was then demolished in 2003.

The final remaining parcel was identified in Takara Shuzo's Kurokabegura in 2019. The liquid had been distilled in 1958, aged in cask, then transferred to ceramic jars at the distillery. When Shirakawa closed, it was put into stainless steel tanks at Takara Shuzo's factory in Kyushu where it lay untouched until now.