Miyazaki Prefecture, Japon

Ariake Sangyo is a Japanese company founded in 1963 by Toshio Odawara in the Fushimi district of Kyoto, the heart of sake production in that region. Its original business was to supply brewers with wooden crates for transporting sake bottles. Ariake Sangyo is the last independent cooperage in Japan. It continues to make its barrels by hand, with old-fashioned carbonization. In the early 1980s, as ties with the spirits world grew closer, Ariake decided to build its first cooperage in Miyazaki. It was on the island of Kyushu, a vast land and the birthplace of shochu, that a simple idea was born: to provide shochu and whisky producers with the means to age their juices. The quality of the casks it produces will make its reputation and its success until today.