Hibiki, resonance, and Japanese whisky

Hibiki – meaning ‘resonance’ in Japanese – does just that. It resonates. The name, the packaging, the whisky itself. 

For anyone familiar with Japanese whisky, Hibiki is a blended brand that stands firm in many people’s minds and hearts. The first time I tried it was during the cherry blossom season, not, sadly, in Japan, but in London. I was in Mayfair for a tasting at a sushi restaurant called Sake no Hana with the Suntory brand ambassador. Back then, few people had really written about or talked about Japanese whisky in the general press. It was still yet to be discovered by the mainstream. 

That night, I was lucky enough to try a whole range of Japanese whiskies that sadly no longer exist. And one of them was the Hibiki 17, which I fell totally in love with. From the elegant bottle with its 24 sides – representing each of the 24 seasons of Japan – to the sweet, floral and fruity aroma and taste, it was like nothing I’d had in Scotch whisky before. I drank it neat, I drank it as a Highball, and I never looked back. 

From that night onwards, I was a Japanese whisky convert. I loved that bottle so much the ambassador let me take the rest of it (and half a bottle of Yamazaki 18 – can you imagine!) home with me. Today, those bottles have been discontinued, but back then, you could still buy many Japanese aged whiskies for a fraction of the price so giving a whisky blogger the remains of a bottle or two wasn’t such a big deal. 

Once I eventually emptied it, I kept that Hibiki bottle for years – put it on display, used it to fill water into, and eventually made it into a candle holder. The art deco stylings went with every house set up from flat shares to finally my own place. I think it went out during a house move at some point, but it was definitely well-loved. 

But it wasn’t just the whisky I fell in love with. It was the whole history of Japan’s relationship with whisky that I became fascinated with. 

The story of Japanese whisky

So, where does Hibiki originate from? 

To understand that, one needs to go back to the origins of whisky in this country. 

What may surprise many – although, perhaps fewer these days now that Japanese whisky has become more well-known – is the fact that the first distillery was built way back in 1923. Sure, we didn’t really start knowing Japanese whisky terribly well here in the UK until maybe 15 to 20 years ago, but the spirit has been flowing from Japan for more than a century. 

In my humble opinion, the story of Japanese whisky’s origins is one of the greatest of all in the world of whisky. Back then, a chap named Shinjiro Torii, a former chemist, realised there was an opportunity to bring whisky-making to Japan. The economy was going into a depression, and his thinking was that money should be kept local, rather than used to buy foreign products like Scotch. He had already founded the Suntory Company and dedicated his pursuits to creating the first whisky distillery in the country. 

Welcome Masataka Taketsuru to the fold. He had gone to Scotland in 1918 to study the art of whisky making. There he learned all about how the Scots did things at numerous distilleries and met a woman, Rita, who would go on to be his wife. 

The two of them journeyed back to Japan, inspired by his desire to take what he’d learned to his home country. That and a Glaswegian wife, a rather rare commodity in those days in Japan. And it was with Torii that he would join forces – to begin with at least – to create Japan’s first homegrown whisky. 

And so it was that in 1923 just outside of Kyoto on a site that had formerly been home to numerous temples and then shrines – a sacred site, say many, with one of the finest water sources in Japan – a distillery was built under the operation of both Torii and Taketsuru. The first spirit began flowing from the stills in 1924, with the aim very much to create a Scottish whisky with a Japanese feel. 

The creation of Japanese whisky

The initial distillations would not be representative of what Torii would go on to make at the distillery. They were too smokey and rich for the Japanese palate, and a shift was needed when there was a lacklustre response to the company’s first major release: Suntory Shirofuda (White Label). The two would also not go on to continue working together. In the early 1930s, they fell out when Torii wanted to make Taketsuru head of brewing operations, in a way demoting him from his role as Japan’s first whisky maker. Taketsuru would go on to relocate further north to Hokkaido where he built Yoichi distillery in an area he felt would be more akin to the climates of Scotland where he honed his knowledge. His story (well, his and Rita’s, but that’s a love story for another time) would go on to help build on the incredible history of Japan’s rich whisky space as he established Nikka, the main rival to Torii’s Suntory. 

But back to Yamazaki. Torii continued with his vision for the distillery and in 1937 launched its first blend called Kakubin, better known as ‘Suntory Whisky’. Housed in a square bottle (from which it gets its name), it was a lighter, fresher whisky than what he’d initially brought out. It gained the distillery huge acclaim with local drinkers, so much so that it is still Japan’s best-selling whisky and found its way into foreigner’s minds when Bill Murray lovingly talked about it in his commercial in the film Lost in Translation. ‘Suntory Time’ can still be said all these years later and most people will immediately get the connection. 

This shift in focus is what allowed the Yamazaki distillery to continue operating and see it through tougher times post World War II. And so in celebration of it reaching 60 years, in 1989 the company launched Hibiki, a blended whisky created by master blender Keizo Saji alongside chief blender Kochi Inatomi. The latter was said to have tasted over a million casks during his long career with the company, and Hibiki was the result of Inatomi and Saji’s collaboration finding 30 malt and grain whiskies together from the parent company’s three main distilleries: Yamazaki, Hakushu malt distillery and Chita grain distillery. 

Unlike in Scotland where blenders will use whiskies from distilleries all across the country, whether they own them or not, to bring different flavour profiles to the mix of a blend, in Japan, distilleries don’t historically share casks. This means that within one distillery, such as Yamazaki, they will make numerous styles and flavours of whisky, all of which can be blended either for a single malt release or used in a blended whisky such as Hibiki. It gives blenders a greater variety of flavour profiles to use without having to rely on the wider market to source them. 

Hibiki, resonance, and Japanese whisky

Now, 35 years later, Hibiki has become a well-loved blended whisky on its home turf and globally. So much so that, like with many Japanese whiskies, age statements have mostly been dropped and those bottles can only be found at auctions. 

But Hibiki does still have a fair range for the whisky lover to choose from, including its popular Harmony, matured in a combination of American oak, sherry casks and Mizunara (Japanese) oak casks. There is also the exquisite 21-year-old variant, named World’s Best Blended Whisky countless times. This rare release is exceptionally well balanced, with the perfect amount of fruit, citrus, earthiness and just a touch of smoke. There are also some limited edition releases, but not as many as one could once get a hold of. 

Had I known all those years ago just how sought-after Japanese whisky would become, I might not have drunk my Hibiki 17 or Yamazaki 18 with quite so much abandon as I did. But, then again, those heady summer nights of drinking Japanese whisky made me fall in love with it and the memories of those times resonate with me to this day. So Hibiki did its job in that way, which is what Torii would have no doubt wanted when he set out to bring whisky to Japan’s shores, and eventually the world, more than a century ago.

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