Kameda Distillery Visit, Part 3: A Maple Syrup Cask, Peated Spirit and a Rice Warehouse Turned Whisky Sanctuary (Niigata, Japan)

2026.10.05

In short: Kameda Distillery in Niigata, Japan, says it has “no house style yet” — and that is the point. A cask “laboratory” of bourbon, mizunara, French and Spanish oak, rum, wine and Japanese mountain cherry casks, refill casks from Mars Shinshu, a peated spirit in an ex-maple syrup cask from Canada, and a former JA rice warehouse that has become an ideal place to mature whisky. Part 3 of my visit series by Mika Tanimoto, owner of Bar Little Happiness in Hiroshima.

Ever since that shock at the whisky event, I had wanted a bottle of Kameda more than anything.

Everywhere I looked, it was “out of stock.” When I finally visited the home of that precious whisky, it felt like a “laboratory” for testing endless possibilities.

An aggressive kind of beauty: “We don’t have a house style yet.” A bond with Mars Shinshu Distillery, and Kameda’s endless map of whisky

“If you ask me what Kameda’s house style is, it isn’t finished at all yet. That’s still to come,” the president says.

Right now, he told me, they are deliberately releasing spirits with completely different characters, to show everyone the full range of “what we can do, from here to there.”

The symbol of that attitude is the astonishing variety of casks lined up in the warehouse.

Alongside the bourbon barrels that form the base, they use mizunara, French oak and Spanish oak — and even rum casks, wine casks and casks made of Japanese mountain cherry (yamazakura).

Besides preparing casks themselves, they had also received refill casks from Mars Whisky (Hombo Shuzo).

While trying all kinds of casks, the president feels the potential for a spirit even closer to his taste, and he is pursuing the “ideal cask” while valuing his ties with other distilleries.

Forbidden match: a Canadian maple syrup cask × peated spirit! A “sweet smokiness” that overturns common sense

What blew me away most was a “maple syrup cask” brought in from Canada.

It is an extremely rare cask: after bourbon was matured in it, it was used to age maple syrup.

Into that cask, the president deliberately filled peated spirit.

Just as he intended — “I like a complex, punchy structure where sweetness and spice live together” — it is turning into a one-of-a-kind whisky in which sweet aromas and smokiness sit side by side!

For cask management, following Kilchoman Distillery’s example, they colour-code the cask heads so the number of fills can be seen at a glance. Nothing is left to chance, even in visual management.

A JA rice warehouse becomes a sanctuary for whisky that will surprise the world: a maturation environment only Niigata’s Kameda could have, born from the local barley “Yukihana Rokujo”

And the place where these diverse spirits sleep was full of surprises, too.

Kameda Distillery now has three warehouses, and the one the president proudly calls “the best environment” is an agricultural warehouse.

It was originally a low-temperature warehouse where the agricultural cooperative (JA) stored rice, built sturdily of stone.

Temperature control is excellent, and he says there is no better place to raise whisky slowly.

In fact, they could rent this warehouse only because of the bond they had built by growing the local barley “Yukihana Rokujo” together with farmers.

“We talked to the cooperative, and they let us have an old warehouse.” That episode is a story only Kameda Distillery, so deeply connected to its region, could tell.

My encounter at that event was never a coincidence.

“Now, while few people know about it, is exactly the time to share its value.”

I couldn’t help feeling that way — Kameda Distillery was steadily climbing the stairs toward becoming “Kameda of the world,” right there in Niigata.

But why can they keep taking on such bold challenges?

In the final part, I will share the family spirit behind his wife’s words, “Then why not make it yourself?”, and the future the president is entrusting to whisky — and to “eels” — a future that lives together with society.

Every encounter is meant to be. Welcome to the world of Rum&Whisky.

Sharing some delicious Niigata food!

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Every encounter is meant to be. Welcome to the world of Rum&Whisky.

[A note from Tanimoto] This article about Kameda Distillery is based on my own visit, but it also includes some of my personal thoughts and interpretations. Please enjoy it as the musings of one whisky lover.