Our Public Premiere
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Our Public Premiere
It was a real forcing function for us, to focus, creatively overcome problems, become a stronger team in order to get our 神居原酒 out into the public's hands.
Hey, I’m Casey. Welcome to our newsletter, sharing the startup journey of Kamui Whisky K.K. We’ve been busy, but when we aren’t overwhelmed, we’ll share a story as we craft up a whisky distillery on a remote, frozen, volcanic island in the most northern part of Japan.
A short time ago we made our public debut at the Japanese Whisky Fes 2022.
We almost didn’t make it.
It was a real forcing function for us to focus, creatively overcome problems, become a stronger team in order to get our 神居原酒 out in public hands.
Time Pressure
There were some tense conversations in the month and weeks before the event. Several times the virtual Andon Cord was pulled. It was called out that we weren’t ready, we wouldn’t be able to put out a quality product, with everything done properly.
On the positive side, it’s an indication that we have a fairly high degree of Psychological Safety within the team. Anyone can speak up without fear that they will have repercussions.
But there was a lot, lot of charged issues that we had to work through.
We didn’t have JAN code. As a first timer to the consumer beverage industry, I didn’t think it was very important. But we researched, the importance was reiterated and werushed to get this done.
We couldn’t get a proper bottling system. The initial, appropriately priced one, got stuck in Kawasaki customs. Never for us to see it again. They have to burn test everything to make sure it is consumer safe. We didn’t buy multiple units, so ours got burned. Money lost, time lost.
Our labels weren’t done. We had frantic triangular calls between the tax office, making sure of everything that we needed to legally have on the label , in which place, in which font, on the bottle, and our top-notch designer.
We didn’t have a filtering system. This one was almost the deal breaker. But, Javier, in his jugaad startup outlook came up with an off-the-shelf hacked system that he bought from Amazon at the last minute. Taura-san was skeptical. In his position as responsible person to the health office, he checked every single bottle to make sure it was clear, of proper quality, and there was nothing but the purest genshu in it.
But we overcome. We made it just in time for the event.
Or, so we thought.
The team barely made it out of the island.
The weather forecast on the day they were supposed to leave, with a spare day already included to account for northern Japan weather uncertainty, was called to be a blizzard. Three days before the scheduled travel time the team heard that ferries would very likely be cancelled for days in a row. The team made the decision to leave that day, hours before the last ferry left. It became a mad rush to get everything boxed up, the distillery squared away until spring, get everything safe and in order, including pipes drain so they don’t burst in the Rishiri winter, as the team would be off island for the next couple of months.
Watch here:
https://youtube.com/shorts/2wkXKkKUjdI
Wonderful Visitors
At the Japanese Whisky Fes we felt a lot of support.
Over the 2 days, split into 4 sessions to limit the number of people for safety, we had lots of our friends stop by.
Quite a few of our very limited, exclusive group of Owner’s Barrel owners stopped by. Some we were meeting for the first time.
We had specialty whisky bar owners stop by, who had come to check on us, to taste, and get their hands on our first release. Places like Bar Old 🔛 Craft and Bar Momo. Who are now one of the exclusive places that you can drink our flavour led expression, 神居原酒。
Our local NHK team travelled all the way from Wakkanai to do a follow-up story on our public release.
A few suppliers, who I nor the team had even met in person, travelled from Hokkaido and other parts of Japan, stopped by to say “Hi”. All the way to our bottle manufacturer; a spontaneous, detailed conversation about corks ensued.
Then there was a special visitor who travelled all the way from our neighboring town, Teshio! (Hi Hidemi👋)
We felt the love.
New Industry Friends, and a Rival
For me it was a surprise of how much this was an industry insider’s event. Going in I thought it would be for the public. Of course, there were lots of public members, the majority, but how many high end whisky store owners, bars, suppliers, and, of course, other distilleries that were there to meet was unexpected.
In the hour or two break between public sessions, when the floor would clear, the distillers would go between booths and chat.
This was a real highlight.
We got to meet distilling teams and make new friends with 江井歹嵨酒造, Kiyokawa, Ikawa Distillery. Having real talk with them, about the increasing price of grains, how we might work together, or getting tips on how to deal with waste water (a real problem for us, and others that work in and respect the natural setting) was very cool.
At the start of this Rishiri whisky project, it was just a dream, I was an outsider. Now I’m an insider and accepted as one.
But, not by everyone.
We’re not even a year old, just a few months into our distilling life, but we’ve got ourselves a rival. It wasn’t sought out by us, of course. They are much larger than us; might be more appropriate to term them a bully. They’d put us on notice a couple of months ago with a very nasty letter. At this event word found it’s way to me they were saying not very nice things here and there, passive aggressively, to visitors at their booth. It’s a small industry. I remain surprised someone would act like this. But, I guess, you encounter narrow-hearted people in all industries. We’ve still got some dealing with them to do, but, even after, I expect we’ll remain rivals for a long time. As the story settles down from this hot, fraught moment, I’ll share some of the unpleasantness we’ve experienced from them
.Our public debut ended on a high with a new potential neighbor, the famous, Ichiro, stopping by and tasting our 神居原酒. The rough translation of his stoically enthusiastic pro response to our taste: “This is real new make. The challenge from here is aging. Let’s see what you can make this become.”
NHK Feature of the Event
For those of you who could not be there, and for those who were there and might have been interviewed by NHK, you can see the Kamui Whisky segment that was broadcast all over Japan here:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/sapporo-news/20221221/7000053616.html
The End of Our First Year
With this, our public debut over, our founding year of distilling whisky in Rishiri came to an end. The team will disperse, take a break for a couple of months. The distillery is closed in January and February as it is too cold to work, too dangerous with the mini-mountains of snow, and too frigid for the yeasties to do their job. We’ll be back distilling in March.
Happy New Year from Rishiri to you all.
Maybe name names. Let’s see.
Our Public Premiere
That’s one hell of a journey Casey, but from the taste of that new make, I’ll bet it was well worth getting the first hint of quality and uniqueness out to the public. For me, it was definitely worth getting up at 4am to be one of the first to experience it at the Japan Festival.
As you well know, the presence of minded rivals are pure evidence they see you as a threat. Keep it up, let them pant and panic ;)
あけましておめでとうございます🎍。
ニューメイクを味わたかったです。今後とも宜しくお願いします。