The White Oak distillery is perhaps the least known of Japan’s whisky producers. The distillery was founded by in 1888 to produce sake, and because of this, has a legitimate claim of being the country’s oldest whisky producer. In 1919, Eigashima Shuzo obtained a license to make whisky — four years before Yamazaki was built. The White Oak distillery was born in 1984, when the company moved to their current facilities, and is located in the city of Akashi in Hyogo Prefecture, west of Kobe, facing the Seto Inland Sea. White Oak’s whisky stills are only in operation for one month of each year, and so their production is very small. Most of it is blended whisky, but when the single malts do appear on the market, the whisky is named ‘Akashi’ after its home town. The first Akashi release was in 2007.