Born in 1894 into a family of sake producers, Masataka Taketsuru is regarded as the father of Japanese whisky. After training as a chemist, he was hired by the company Settsu Shuzo, which sent him to Scotland in 1918 to complete his apprenticeship. He became passionate about whisky and decided to devote his life to it. In 1934, he built Yoichi, his first distillery, on the island of Hokkaidō. Its growing success allowed him to establish a second in 1969, near Sendai: Miyagikyo. It is mainly from these two distilleries that the Nikka Whisky group creates its full range of Japanese whiskies and spirits.