Japanese whiskey made from home-grown corn will take on Kentucky bourbon

In the vast, rolling fields of Hokkaido, northern Japan, the corn crop is ripening. The vast majority of the prefecture’s corn traditionally ends up as animal feed each year – but Hidekuni Hayashi is convinced there is a far better use for the sweet golden kernels.

Hayashi, the owner of Hokkaido Liberty Whisky, is working with two other distilleries and a research organisation in Japan’s northernmost prefecture to blend corn with a touch of barley and the region’s famous water. The result? The nation’s first corn-based whiskey.

The spirit will not have “bourbon” anywhere on the bottle, as that name is reserved solely for barrel-aged whiskeys that are produced in the American state of Kentucky, but the distilling process will be the same and there will be many parallels when the amber liquid is poured, said Hayashi.

“The only bourbon that is sold in Japan is made in the United States, and I believe this will be the first whiskey ever made in Japan using the bourbon method,” said Hayashi. “We will not be able to use the name ‘bourbon’, so in that sense it will be a completely different drink, but if it is good, I think it will catch on.

“Also, I think we can benefit from Nikka Whisky in terms of marketing, as Hokkaido is well-known around the world and we can promote our products to visitors from all over the world,” he said. “And in the future, it may be possible to age the whiskey in barrels made with wood from Hokkaido.”

Hayashi is working with his counterparts at the Niseko Distillery, which produces high-end whisky and gin, and Sapporo Shusei Kogyo, which has been making sake and shochu since the 1940s. The drinks firms are collaborating with the Hokkaido Research Organisation, which is based in the prefectural capital of Sapporo and works with companies in the agricultural, fisheries, forestry and industrial sectors to promote the region.

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“We came up with the idea of corn-based whiskey when we realised that Hokkaido is the source of most of the corn grown in Japan, but that it was primarily being used as animal feed,” said Shigemasa Shimizu, who is overseeing the project at the agency. “We believe that combining corn with the other ingredients that are here – pure water, a little rye and our cool climate – then we can produce a good whiskey.”

The first distilling equipment – imported from specialist makers Forsyths in Scotland’s famous Speyside whisky-distilling region – has been installed in Hayashi’s distillery in Naganuma, just to the east of Sapporo, and is capable of producing around 10,000 litres (2,640 US gallons) a year.

Hayashi says the most difficult element of the project is to bring out the flavour of the corn and make a unique and memorable spirit.

The painstaking work of creating the perfect combination of ingredients and ageing is still under way, while a brand name for the new tipple has also yet to be decided, but the experts behind the new spirit are aiming to add to Japan’s reputation for producing top-notch whiskies with the release of the first batch in 2026.