The White Oak distillery is located in the city of Akashi, in Hyogo Prefecture, and has a justifiable claim of being Japans oldest distillery acquiring a whisky making license in 1919, some four years before the Yamazaki distillery was built. It’s the closest distillery to the coast of Japan and was founded by Eigashima Shuzo in 1888 to produce sake and shochu. In 1984, the Eigashima distillery replaced the production facility with a new building and production line and the White Oak distillery was established.
White Oak’s whisky stills are only in operation for one month every year and the distillery imports selected barley and malts from Scotland and uses the same water it uses for the production of its sake and shochu. Most of it is blended whisky and the output is very small, but when their rare single malts do come on the market the whisky is named after its hometown “Akashi”. The first Akashi single malt whisky was released in 2007.