SOGAINI: Hiroshima Dialect in a Bottle, and Japanese Whisky for Every Day
2025.8.04
News from Sakurao, here at home
A new whisky is coming out of Sakurao Distillery in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima.
It’s called SOGAINI.
Sogaini is Hiroshima dialect for “that much” — the way you’d say it here, not the way you’d say it in Tokyo. You’ll see it a fair few times below.
Release date: October 1, 2025.
That far off, and I already can’t sit still.
I have a feeling something big is about to happen with this bottle.
⬇️ The latest report is here ⬇️
SOGAINI, taken apart properly — and something remarkable that happened on the distillery tour
Why SOGAINI matters
- Sogaini easy to buy: the ¥2,000 range, before tax.
- Sogaini much work behind it: 100% Japanese malt and grain, made start to finish in-house.
- Sogaini solidly built that it clears the Japanese whisky labelling standard.
Japanese whisky has meant expensive single malts, mostly.
SOGAINI came out of a different thought: it doesn’t have to be sogaini expensive to be the real thing.
Sakurao is moving — and Forest Site is what’s next
Sakurao is currently building a second distillery, Sakurao Forest Site, deep in the mountains.
There was nothing there yet, and I wanted to see it so badly that I went twice.
I was sogaini excited I couldn’t help myself.
▼ From my visits to Forest Site, back when there was nothing there yet
What kind of view will open up from here, and what kind of whisky will come out of it —
I get carried away just imagining it.
When it’s finished, a sogaini remarkable new chapter of Sakurao’s history begins.
The taste — sogaini much packed into one glass
A blend of spirit from two warehouses: Sakurao and Togouchi.
(From the official release ↓)
A high malt proportion for a blend, with an aroma that is strong, fine-grained and fruity.
Sweet vanilla on the nose. In the mouth, a chocolate sweetness alongside a soft acidity like ripe citrus.
In a highball the fruit from the malt lifts clearly, and it becomes cleaner still, and easier to drink.
The name SOGAINI is Hiroshima dialect for “that much.”
Sogaini good in quality, sogaini good in aroma, sogaini good in flavour, sogaini easy to buy — all of it packed into one bottle.
A bottle with the warmth of this place in it.
The view opening up ahead
The campaign features the actor Sota Fukushi.
Bringing in someone sogaini famous — they’re serious about this.
This is a step toward moving Japanese whisky from something for special occasions into something you live with.
A distillery in Hiroshima looking sogaini far ahead, and moving. That gets to me.
A properly Japanese whisky in the ¥2,000 range.
Sogaini within reach that it could become a new standard — the first since Suntory Kaku.
(Nikka’s Frontier and Black Nikka use some imported spirit.)
It might even pass Kaku one day.
I can’t wait for the day I open a bottle of SOGAINI at my counter.
It’ll be a highball, I think. A glass with sogaini much in it, going out from Hiroshima to the world.
Every encounter is meant to be. Welcome to the world of Rum & Whisky.
Bar Little Happiness — Mika Tanimoto
【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.
