Shirakawa 1958 is a bottle of ancient Japanese single malt whisky with a remarkable story to tell.

The Shirakawa distillery was built 200km north of Tokyo in 1939 by Daikoku Budoshu, the company that went on to build Karuizawa distillery in 1956.

A multi-purpose distillery that also made shochu for much of its lifetime, Shirakawa was purchased by Daikoku's parent company Takara Shuzo in 1947, and from 1951 to 1969 was focused on malt whisky production for Takara's blended whiskies - but was never bottled as a single malt.

Shirakawa subsequently reverted to distilling shochu and none of the distillery's malt whisky was thought to survive, but in 2019, following enquiries by Stephen Bremner, the MD of Takara Shuzo's Tomatin distillery, a small quantity was discovered in stainless steel tanks at one of Takara's subsidiaries.

This Shirakawa whisky was distilled in 1958 and was aged in oak casks - most likely Mizunara wood - before being transferred to ceramic jars and subsequently to the stainless steel tanks in which it was found. The exact length of time this 1958 Shirakawa was aged in oak is unclear, as many records were lost when the Shirakawa distillery was demolished in 2003, however there's no question that this is an enormously significant find for Japanese whisky.

Shirakawa 1958 has been bottled at its cask strength of 49% in a special edition of 1500 bottles and is a completely one-off bottling. This will be the first and last Shirakawa whisky ever bottled - Takara Shuzo have confirmed that there is no more in their inventory. The terms 'unique' and 'liquid history' are horribly over-used in whisky marketing, but this 1958 Shirakawa is the genuine article.