Wakatsuru Shozou Distillery is a Ji-whisky distillery. Ji-whisky means ‘local’ and is comparable to "micro-brewing" or "micro-distilling". Wakatsuru Distillery obtained a license to distill whisky in 1953 and has been producing a small amount of whisky on and off since then. The distillery is located in Toyama, the capital city of Toyama Prefecture, Japan, on the coast of the Sea of Japan in the Chūbu region on central Honshu, about 200 km north of the city of Nagoya and 300 km northwest of Tokyo.