You know Gaiaflow right? A recently established independent bottler in Shizuoka (a city chiefly known for having an excellent view of Mt. Fuji). The company has made some name for itself for importing and bottling exotic whiskies from places like India and Sweden.

They also offer excellent whiskies from well known Scottish distilleries such as Glenburgie (marketed as Asta Morris) and we at dekanta have a few of these bottles.

Anyway, it turns out that Gaiaflow has ambitions to be more than just an independent bottler. In fact they managed to get their hands on the equipment from the legendary Karuizawa distillery, the reason? They´re going to use it to open up their very own distillery!

According to an announcement (in Japanese only) on their homepage, they have had the equipment inspected, fixed what needs to be fixed and are making it ready to be transferred to Shizuoka.

The distillery is still being built, plans are to complete it in the spring of 2016, thats only a few months away!

In short; exiting times coming up for lovers of Japanese whisky, we cant wait to try out the whisky that comes out of this distillery, but of course, we´re going to have to wait for a while, whisky after all, does not mature overnight.