TAKETSURU

Masataka Taketsuru left Japan in 1919 to study chemistry at Glasgow University before learning the art of whisky distillation by working at a number of Scottish distilleries and, in 1920, marrying a Scottish girl, Jessie "Rita" Cowan. Taketsuru chose Yoichi, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, as the site for his first distillery because he believed that the geography, geology and climate of this part of Japan was most similar to Scotland.