The classic cocktail trend at bars and restaurants across the region doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast (except maybe down the hatch), and adventurous sippers may soon enjoy a cleaner, softer whiskey from Japan in their coupe or highball glass.
Although only about one percent of Japanese spirits is ever exported, Takamine whiskey is beginning to pop up in New York City—which means the Hudson Valley can’t be far behind. It’s named for Japanese chemist Jokichi Takamine, who in the late 1800s in Chicago, experimented making whiskey with koji, a natural mold starter. Pervasive in Japan’s culinary culture, koji plays a starring role in the fermentation of soy sauce, miso, mirin rice wine, sake, and much more.
(As the story goes, Dr. Takamine was chased out of Chicago by the mafia and wound up in New York City, where he switched his focus from hooch to pharmaceuticals, and made a fortune for isolating adrenaline.)
His idea to use koji in whiskey-making has been resurrected by Japan’s Shinozaki Distillery, who alerted the holders of Dr. Takamine’s estate that they’d like to give it a go. “They were thrilled because whiskey was his one failed experiment,” says brand ambassador Stephen Lyman. “Takamine was one of the more important people to emigrate to the U.S. from Japan, and people should know about him.”
When used in malting and fermentation, koji produces a cleaner taste and a flavor all its own. Lyman describes Takamine as “bourbon without the corn.” Part of the process involves removing the husks from the barley, which also eliminates the grain’s impurities, so all that’s left is a starchy center. “White rice tastes cleaner than brown or whole grain,” Lyman explains. “You get a softer, sweeter spirit with koji.”
Koji whiskey has notes of caramel and an almost chocolatey flavor, as well, which also comes from a long fermentation period. But before you ferment, you malt. And rather than malting barley in water (which must be stirred often) or floor malting (where moistened barley is spread on the floor and turned regularly), then kilning it to stop germination, adding koji to the mix makes the whole process less labor intensive and more efficient.
Takamine whiskey ferments for 15 days before it’s double distilled. “Decently long whiskey fermentations might be 4 to 5 days. Koji spirits can be 15 to 17 days, and some go 45 days,” explains Lyman. “Long fermentations at low temperatures, low and slow, create a different flavor.”
After fermentation, Takamine matures for eight years in handmade barrels composed of 90 percent virgin American oak and 10 percent ex-bourbon casks. Some bottles are blends from early experimental casks: The 20-year was VinePair’s third-ranked whiskey in 2024. The six-year Sakura Cask is first aged in white oak barrels, then finished in barrels with heads made from cherry blossom trees.
If you spy Takamine whiskey on a liquor store shelf, snag it, then Google search “Jokichi Takamine, Forestburgh.” That’s the Sullivan County town where Dr. Takamine spent summers—in a reconstructed palace made for Emperor Meiji’s living quarters at the St. Louis World’s Fair. The emperor gifted it to Takamine, who then had it disassembled, put on a train, and rebuilt in the Catskills. Pour yourself a few fingers of his namesake whiskey, sip, and ponder the ever-increasing wealth of food and beverage journeys that start, and sometimes end, in our own backyard.
