In pursuit of perfection

In little over a century, whiskies from Japan that started by bridging a gap in the local market have become a global phenomenon.

- Sayoni Bhaduri

The one person who has seen and played a very key role in this meteoric rise is Shinji Fukuyo, chief blender at Suntory Global Spirits. For 42 years, Fukuyo has been immersed in a world of balance, maturity and perfection at the oldest Japanese distillery. He remembers that just 25 years ago, Japanese whisky sales were declining. “The first 25 years in my whiskey career, the Japanese whisky business was so bad. We had a surplus of whisky stock at the time,” he shares. An unthinkable idea based on the limited availability of the spirit today.