Sekk Sato Shiki: Rice Whisky From a 1905 Distillery, on a Still Nobody Else Has

We hosted a Sato Shiki highball event back in early 2025. This is the longer version of what is actually in those bottles.

Seed to Sip

The brand was founded by Taichi Seki around a specific claim: 100% Japanese whisky, all the way down.

That phrase gets used loosely. A large amount of whisky sold as Japanese has, at various points, contained spirit distilled elsewhere, and the labeling rules only tightened relatively recently. So it is worth spelling out what Sekk Sato Shiki means by it.

The grain is sourced locally from Makino farms in Miyazaki Prefecture. The distillation happens at Sato Distillery, established in 1905, on the banks of the Houri River. And the casks are Japanese, made at Ariake Angyo Cooperage.

That last part is the piece most people miss. Japan has a serious wood problem in whisky: almost all of its casks are imported, and domestic cooperages are vanishingly rare. Sourcing Japanese-made casks is harder than sourcing Japanese barley.

The Still

The distillery uses what is simply called the Sato Still, invented by master distiller Junji Mizue in 1989. It is one of a kind.

There is no second one anywhere. Whatever this whisky tastes like, no other distillery can reproduce it by copying the process, because the central piece of equipment does not exist outside this building.

That is a rarer situation than it sounds. Most distilleries use pot stills or column stills built to broadly standard designs, from a handful of manufacturers. A bespoke still is a genuine competitive moat and also a genuine risk, since there is no spare.

What Is in the Bottles

We carry four.

Single Grain, 43% ABV, is the one that best explains the house. The mash is 88% Koshihikari rice and 12% malted barley, aged across white oak, Spanish oak and sherry casks. Koshihikari is the rice most Japanese people eat, not a specialty whisky grain, and using it as the bulk of a mash bill is a deliberately Japanese choice. Floral, then roasted nuts, caramel and honey.

Single Malt, 40% ABV, is the barley expression. Roasted barley, citrus, vanilla, banana and butter.

The 21 Year, 40% ABV, shows what two decades does to this spirit: sweet custard, dates, marzipan and roasted grain.

The 41 Year, 40% ABV, is the top of the range and the rarest. Dried fruit, roasted grain and butter. A forty-one-year-old Japanese whisky means someone filled a cask in the 1980s, long before there was a global market that would pay for it.

Grain Whisky, Briefly

Since half this range is grain whisky, the category is worth explaining, because most drinkers have never bought a bottle of it on purpose.

Single malt is made only from malted barley at one distillery. Grain whisky is made from other grains, usually with a smaller proportion of malted barley to provide the enzymes for conversion. In Scotland it is mostly used as blending stock and rarely bottled on its own.

Aged long enough, grain whisky develops a distinct character: softer, sweeter, more custard and coconut than malt, with less of malt's cereal grip. Those forty-one years are doing something malt would not do.

How to Drink Them

At 40 to 43% these are not bottles that need water. Neat in a nosing glass for the aged expressions.

The Single Grain is the one that makes an excellent highball, and given the brand's own event history that is clearly by design. Rice and soda water is a very good combination.

Try It at Juraku

Sekk Sato Shiki bottles are on the whisky list at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side. The aged expressions are limited, so check the current menu or ask the bar what is open.