Major makers Suntory and Nikka, a unit of beer maker Asahi Group ... set up a Japanese subsidiary known as Cedarfield that is building a distillery on the northern island of Hokkaido that would ...

Mamoru Tsuchiya, head of the Tokyo-based Japan Whisky Research Center, said there are 114 whisky distilleries across Japan, including those in the planning stage, and the number is growing.

Motivated by this discovery, he modernized the distillery's aging facilities and became the master blender, creating whiskies based on his own tastes. This transformation coincided with an ...