In November of last year, Japan business daily Nikkei revealed that Kirin intended to make an investment to increase their whisky production capacity at the Fuji Gotemba Distillery.
We now have an official announcement from Kirin themselves to the same effect. They plan to upgrade and enlarge their aging facilities, which should yield around a 20% increase in capacity. They will also be adding four new mash tuns and two sets of stills (i.e. four new stills). Total cost? 8 billion yen! Nobody ever said making whisky is cheap.
With the impending doom of budget-friendly Fujisanroku Tarujuku 50 in March, the extra capacity can’t come soon enough for Kirin. We will have to wait a while though, as the new stills/facilities are not expected to come into operation until June 2021.
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