Jokichi Takamine is likely the most influential Japanese distiller you’ve never heard of. Decades before Masataka Taketsuru (AKA the father of Japanese whiskey) traveled to Scotland to learn the secrets of Scotch whisky, chemist Jokichi Takamine was living in the U.S. and experimenting with using koji mold to saccharify barley. This makes Takamine koji whiskey not only a Japanese whiskey, but a product with a uniquely American origin story.
Takamine was a highly educated and curious chemist who also came from a long line of sake brewers on his mother’s side. Following postgraduate work at the University of Glasgow—where, we can surmise, he drank a lot of Scotch—Takamine traveled to the U.S. where he met and married Caroline Hitch.
Settling a few years later in Illinois, Takamine established the Takamine Ferment Company and began making whiskey, experimenting with the traditional koji method of fermentation. Koji, the official national mold of Japan, converts starches to sugars in a process similar to malting barley. It’s used not only in whiskey but also sake and mirin, as well as soy sauce, miso, and pickles. Koji fermentation takes longer than the traditional malt method and finishes with a higher alcohol level.
Takamine invented and patented the Takamine Process, in which koji and yeast are active at the same time in a multiple parallel fermentation. Koji is an efficient converter—it actually “malts” more efficiently than the malting process for barley. In partnership with the Illinois Whiskey Trust, Takamine begins to successfully produce whisky using his new koji process at the Manhattan Distillery.
In 1894, a series of financial challenges beset the company and the distillery mysteriously burnt to the ground. While this was a serious blow, Takamine, a true entrepreneur, continued to move forward. In 1901, he isolated adrenaline for medical use—it’s now known as life-saving Epinephrine. Like many founders of start-ups, Takamine learned from his failures. In addition to his success as a chemist, he became a philanthropist and donated 2,100 cherry trees to the Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. (they’re still there!).
Fast-forward a century to Stephen Lyman, author of The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks, who, in talking with longtime friend Michiaki Shinozaki, owner of Shinozaki Distillery, found that Shinozaki was experimenting with koji fermentation in his distillation process.
Lyman and Shinozaki went to the Takamine Family Trust to ask permission to use the name and call this the official Takamine Process and begin producing koji whiskey. The family, pleased that the pair wanted to revive one of Takamine’s few failed enterprises, granted permission.
Christopher Pellegrini, founder of Honkaku Spirits, came on board in 2020 as partner with the mission of bringing intensely artisanal Japanese spirits to discerning consumers worldwide—excited to work with Shinozaki Distillery to revive the Takamine process and share it with the world.
This partnership bottled and imported their first spirit in 2021, the eight-year Takamine koji whiskey.
This whiskey is 100% barley, double distilled, and clocks in at 40% ABV. It is aged in 90% virgin oak and 10% ex-bourbon barrels.
