Saburomaru Distillery, Part 1: The Edison of Japanese Whisky
2026.1.23
Hiroshima to Toyama, and a distillery I’d wanted to see for years. Meeting Takahiko Inagaki again, and losing my head over it entirely
I finally got to Saburomaru Distillery.
It was so good that I lost my head completely.
I want to pass all of it on, so I’m writing it across five parts, properly.
We were shown round by Takahiko Inagaki himself — the company’s president, and its blender.
What a way to spend an afternoon.
I had met him once before, some years ago.
This time, hearing what he is aiming at,
I found myself thinking: why didn’t I ask him about all this properly back then, when everything was just starting and running hot? I regret it enormously.
That’s how much meeting him again took hold of me, and how deep the respect that rose out of it went.
From 10% of revenue to 80%. Inagaki is drawing an entire ecosystem, with the survival of Japanese whisky riding on it
He knows exactly who he wants to be, and what future he wants to build. He sees from a startling height.
And that aim doesn’t stay an ideal. It connects, solidly, to a business that keeps climbing.
Whisky was under a tenth of their revenue. He has grown it to eight tenths. That is remarkable work.
By ten in the morning, tour buses were parked outside and the shop was packed. Nothing proves it better than that. (Around 45,000 people visit a year.)
But what moved me most was the resolve behind those numbers.
“If we only think about our own company, the Japanese whisky industry itself won’t hold up.”
With that urgency behind him, he treats reviving Saburomaru and building out the whole ecosystem of Japanese whisky as one aim, no longer separable — that’s how it looked to me, and I couldn’t see it any other way.
Born into the founding family, steering a company with over a century of history and enormous pressure on it — and yet, showing us round, once he starts talking he is completely engaging, and boyish all the way through.
He taught himself CAD, drew the plans himself, and has taken out patent after patent — on ZEMON, the world’s first cast-metal pot still, and on Barrel Roll 2, an automatic cask-shaving machine.
The building looks its age from outside. The equipment and systems inside are startlingly digital.
In Toyama, where you still pay train fares in cash, plans this far ahead of their time can hardly have reached most people at first.
He made something out of nothing and moved fast, and it’s exhilarating to watch. Behind that, how deep was the loneliness he was fighting?
The conflict and the weight he must have faced, none of it sayable — it kept passing through my chest, uninvited.
And that he was absorbed enough, lost enough in it, to blow that loneliness away — you can be certain of that from his eyes.
Decades from now, people will look back at this period of upheaval and he will be recorded as the Edison of Japanese whisky. I’m sure of it.
There was heat enough there to make you feel it coming.
A century of history in the Taisho warehouse, and a maker’s love bordering on madness. Washbacks under your feet, and one device after another built to work on the senses
The building tells you directly: someone who loves whisky made this.
They’ve worked with the weight of history in the Taisho warehouse, which came through the war intact — and scattered devices through it that make you want to look: floor panels cut away in glass so you can see the washbacks beneath you, doors that work like hidden doors.
He does one new thing after another, so there must be a fair amount of friction around him even now. He shows none of it. He simply keeps moving toward the future he’s aiming at.
Saburomaru’s whisky is a fine thing in its own right. But what took me completely was the way Takahiko Inagaki lives. I came away a fan.
From the next part, I’ll take the details apart one at a time — starting with the story of ZEMON, the world’s first cast-metal pot still. I hope you’ll stay with me to the end.
Every encounter is meant to be. Welcome to the world of Rum & Whisky.
▶️ Part 2
Related posts
Two peats meeting as lovers — Saburomaru VI THE LOVERS
【A note from Mika】 This article is built on my own visit to the distillery, but parts of it are my own reading and interpretation. Please take it as one whisky lover thinking out loud.
【About the author】
Mika Tanimoto — President, Little.m Inc. / owner-bartender
Owner of Bar Little Happiness, a rum and whisky bar in Hiroshima now in its twentieth year.
Since opening in 2006, she has worked as a specialist in passing on what moves her about whisky and rum.
The back bar holds over 1,000 bottles, from rare and hard-to-find releases to Sakurao, made here in Hiroshima.
• More than one bar: alongside the main bar, she runs a casual sister venue, the Rum & Whisky Highball Bar.
• Online: an online shop sending selected bottles across Japan in small measures.
• Writing: her column, Notes on Whisky and Rum.
・The founding story: At 22, working poor, and the light I found.
Whisky and rum taste better when you know the hearts behind them.
