NEWS
IJW WHISKEY OF USA TO BUILD 165,000SQM DISTILLERY IN JAPAN'S HOKKAIDO
By Susan Lewis
28-3-2023
Credit: Kwon Youn/Unsplash
Kentucky-based bourbon maker IJW Whiskey is planning to build a whisky distillery in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido in order to benefit from the global popularity of Japanese whisky, according to a report in Nikkei Asia.
The distillery will be constructed by Cedarfield, IJW's Japan subsidiary in Tokyo. Nikkei Asia said the company has acquired 165,000 sqm of land at an industrial park adjacent to the New Chitose Airport, which is about 40km to the Southeast of provincial capital Sapporo.
The plant will have column stills for distillation and vast storage areas for maturation, production is expected to start as early as next year.
There is no mentioning of the total amount to be invested, but the scale of IJW's facility will be on par with Kirin Holding's Fuji Gotemba distillery, one of the world's largest, located at the base of Mount Fuji.
Nikkei Asia said it is unheard of for a non-Japanese company to enter the industry at this scale.
IJW is described by US media as "secretive" and "mysterious". The company's ownership remains unknown, its President David Morduchowitz, who is connected to the anonymous founder, is a former lawyer and oversees the company from Beverly Hills in California.
According to Whisky Advocate, IJW began laying down whiskey in Danville of Kentucky in 2016, so far the company has 100,000 barrels maturing in its four rickhouses spanning a total area of 400,000 sqm.
“We’ve flown under the radar by design,” Morduchowitz told Whisky Advocate last year in a rare interview. “We were sort of saying, ‘Let’s let our work product, let’s let our infrastructure, our inventory, everything that we’re doing — let all that do the talking. When we’re ready to come up for air, then there’s time to let people know we exist.”
Last year, Japan exported YEN56 billion (USD430.8m) worth of whisky, up 20 percent from 2021. Japanese whisky has emerged to become a symbol of quality in recent years, its popularity keeps surging and this maybe the reason why IJW decided to invest in a whisky distillery in Japan.
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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