100% domestic whiskey production begins in Taiki Town, Hokkaido!
Interview with Kazunori Shizuya of Taiki Cosmic Glen Distillery
- Part 1 -

This month, Kazunori Shizuya, aka "Shizutani En" with over 2 million followers on SNS, joins us!We asked him about the new whiskey distillery he is launching in partnership with entrepreneur Takafumi Horie!

writer：Ryoko Kuraishi　後編写真：Midori Yamashita

100% locally made Japanese whiskey.

Master of Whiskey" Kazunori Shizuya is teaming up with businessman Mr.Takafumi Horie to launch a whiskey distillery! Such news came last fall.

They are establishing "Taiki Cosmic Glen Distillery.

Their goal is to produce 100% made-in-Japan whiskey using only local ingredients from Taiki Town, Hokkaido.

While most Japanese whiskey is made with malt and other ingredients from overseas, Taiki Cosmic Glen Distillery plans to procure all of its ingredients from within the town itself.

Taiki is a small town with a population of about 5,000 located in the southern Tokachi Plain.Many people may know it as "the town of rockets.

The "Hokkaido Spaceport" in the town is Asia's first spaceport open to the private sector, where JAXA, private companies, and universities are conducting experiments and development in aerospace.

Interstellar Technologies, led by entrepreneur Mr.Takafumi Horie, has been conducting rocket launch experiments from this base since 2011.

A tour of distilleries on the island of Islay with Mr. Horie and his group.

The impetus for the launch was a tour of distilleries on the island of Islay.

One of the directors of Taiki Cosmic Glen Distillery is Kazunori Shizuya, owner-bartender of Shinjuku Whiskey Salon and Bar Livet, and a "Master of Whiskey".

Shizuya says, "I have known Mr. Horie for a couple of years through his appearances on YouTube.

The reason why they decided to work together on a distillery was because they went to Islay last summer to visit a distillery.

The members of the trip were Kenichiro Hayashi, the representative of Nagano-Ya, Mr. Horie, Kazuma Mihara, who runs a catering business, and myself.

Mr. Horie and Mr. Mihara were planning a tour of the island of Islay, and since Mr. Hayashi and I were also planning to visit the island, we decided to go together.

Shizutani served as a tour guide on Islay, where they stayed for a little less than a week.What left a lasting impression on Ms. Shizutani during the tour was Mr. Horie's comment, "This is exactly the same scenery as in Taiki Town," when she saw the peat swamps spreading out all over the area.

There was no concrete talk of a distillery business before the trip, but perhaps Mr. Horie had a vague idea in his mind.

To begin with, Taiki-cho has an endless supply of peat, which has never been looked at before, and is produced for livestock feed.To begin with, Taiki Town has an endless supply of peat, which has never been looked at before, and corn (dent corn) produced for livestock feed.

The Rekifune River that runs through the town has been selected as the "cleanest river in Japan" many times in the past by the Environment Agency for its water quality, and its water quality is soft water suitable for brewing.Furthermore, there is even an old-growth forest of Quercus serrata!

In other words, all the pieces for whiskey making are there.

"Because of this, the idea of 'Let's build a distillery in Taiki-cho!' became solidified during my stay on Islay."

Mr. Shizuya was a tour guide on the distillery tour.It had been a long time since she had been to Islay, and it seemed to motivate her.

A hybrid of bourbon and scotch!

Currently, a variety of whiskey distilleries have sprung up across Japan, but Taiki Cosmic Glen Distillery is aiming for a one-of-a-kind "corn with peat flavor, a 'hybrid of bourbon and Islay,' so to speak" (Mr. Shizuya).The distillery's goal is to create a unique, "corn-peated, 'bourbon/Iraa hybrid' whiskey" (Shizutani).

There are some brewers, such as Springbank and Brooklady, who use only local barley, but it is a rare case where all of the ingredients are locally grown.

Taiki Town's peat bogs are located in an air-water area near the ocean, so we can expect a variety of peat types, including oceanic peat (iodine-odor type) and inland peat (peat with flavors reminiscent of Ardmore and other types of peat).

In addition, in the future we plan to use oak barrels from Taiki-cho for aging barrels (initially white oak and sherry barrels).

There is also a unique cycle in the town: corn, the raw material for whiskey, is also used to feed cattle, and the cattle manure is used to produce biomethane, which is used as rocket fuel.

The close relationship between dairy farming, the rocket industry, and whiskey production is unique to the town of Taiki.

A commemorative photo in front of the Ardbeg distillery with the founding members of Taiki Cosmic Glen Distillery.

The more you ask, the more ambitious Taiki Cosmic Glen Distillery's whiskey making is.They plan to finish bringing in their facilities and equipment and start producing Newborn by the end of this year, and are currently looking for an owner's cask!

Mr. Shizuya will be involved in this as a master blender, and they may be looking for a new distilling manager in the near future!


In the second part, he will talk about whisky tourism in Taiki Town and how the whisky scene is changing from his perspective as a whisky professional.

Continue to Part 2.