Nikka's founder Masataka Taketsuru is considered the father of Japanese whisky. After completing studies in chemistry, he was recruited by the Settsu Shuzo company, who sent him to Scotland in 1918 to complete his apprenticeship. There he developed a passion for whisky and decided to dedicate his life to it. In 1934, he built Yoichi, his first distillery, on the island of Hokkaido. Its growing success enabled him to establish a second distillery in 1969, near Sendai, named Miyagikyo. It is from the single malts of these two distilleries that the Nikka Whisky group produces its entire range of Japanese whiskies.

A single cask Nikka Coffey Malt (#143228) distilled in 1998 and bottled in 2012 after maturation in Warehouse No. 11. Coffey Malt is a whisky produced from malted barley and distilled in a Coffey still, named after its inventor Aeneas Coffey, an Irish customers officer who perfected Robert Stein’’s 1826 invention in 1830. This whisky was distilled before Nishinomiya’’s Coffey still was transferred to Miyagikyo in 1999.