Suntory Marks Centennial With Whisky Upgrades

Suntory Spirits Ltd. will invest 10 billion yen ($76 million) over two years to upgrade its Yamazaki and Hakushu distilleries and release new canned highball products to mark its 100th anniversary of making whisky, Yuji Yamashita reported for Asahi Shimbun.

Photo Insert: “Yamazaki,” a high-end whisky product named after the distillery, has earned high international acclaim.

It plans to introduce the traditional production method of floor malting at both distilleries for some of its products, where workers will spread out barley, the main ingredient for making whisky, on the floor and stir it by hand so it germinates into malt.

This method brings out more aroma than mechanized processes, although Suntory officials have yet to settle on how to use it for marketing purposes. But they hope the experiment will help the company improve the quality of its products overall.

“We will keep working simply and honestly over the next 100 years, too, on improving quality and creating demand,” Suntory President Nobuhiro Torii said at a Feb. 1 news conference marking the centenary year.

Shinjiro Torii, Suntory’s founder who is Nobuhiro’s great-grandfather, set about building Japan’s first malt whisky distillery, the Yamazaki Distillery in Osaka Prefecture, in 1923.

It continues to produce some of the unblended malt whisky used in Suntory’s signature “Kakubin” (square bottle) and “Old” whisky products, and the “Yamazaki,” a high-end whisky product named after the distillery, has earned high international acclaim.

But Suntory’s unblended whisky has become almost too successful. It is celebrating the anniversary while coping with limited output capacity for unblended malt whiskies among brisk and unyielding demand.

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