Nikka

Nikka was founded in 1934 by Masataka Taketsuru, who had studied whisky making in Scotland and is often called a father of Japanese whisky. He built his first distillery at Yoichi on the island of Hokkaido, chosen for its cool, damp climate. A second distillery, Miyagikyo, followed in 1969 in Miyagi Prefecture. Nikka has been part of the Asahi group since 2001.

Yoichi is known for its coal-fired pot stills and a robust, often lightly peated and maritime spirit. Miyagikyo makes a softer, fruitier malt and is also home to Nikka's Coffey stills, old continuous stills of a type rarely used today. These produce the grain and malt spirit behind Coffey Grain and Coffey Malt, both rich and sweet in style.

Much of the range is blended. From The Barrel is a strong, compact blend bottled at 51.4%, and From The Barrel Extra Marriage is a variation on it. Super Nikka, Frontier, Tailored and the Nikka Pure Malt Black are other blends or vatted malts, and Nine Decades marked the company's 90th anniversary.

Aged releases such as The 12 Year Old and The 40 Year Old, and occasional single casks like a 21-year-old grain from 1995, are scarce and priced accordingly. Nikka whiskies are almost always official bottlings.