Mitake Distillery x Taiwanese art: four limited editions from sherry casks

Morning Glory Co., Ltd., a Tokyo company that introduces fine Japanese sake and spirits overseas (representative director: Daisuke Tezuka), launched a limited-edition whisky project on the crowdfunding site CAMPFIRE on 27 June 2026. The spirit comes from Mitake Distillery in Kagoshima Prefecture, and the labels are painted by the Taiwanese artist Idea Hsieh (Hsieh Yi-chun). There are four expressions on the theme of “earth, water, fire and wind”, each limited to about 500 bottles worldwide, with just 8 bottles of each sold in Japan. It can fairly be called a project aimed squarely at overseas collectors.

A new distillery from a long-established shochu maker

Kagoshima Prefecture lies at the southern end of Kyushu and is a major production area for shochu, a Japanese distilled spirit made from ingredients such as sweet potato. Nishi Shuzo, which runs Mitake Distillery, is a brewer with around 200 years of history making shochu. The distillery stands on a hillside with a view of Sakurajima, the volcano in Kagoshima Bay (formerly known as “Mitake”), and it began distilling whisky in 2019. It is a young distillery as a whisky maker, but it builds on the experience of a producer that has made distilled spirits for a very long time.

Sherry casks used for 30 to 40 years, bottled without added water

The “30 to 40 years” in the headline refers to how long the casks were used, not to the age of the whisky. The project uses “non-seasoned” casks that spent 30 to 40 years maturing sherry in the Jerez region of Spain. Non-seasoned means casks that actually raised sherry, rather than casks briefly infused with sherry for whisky use. The whisky is bottled at cask strength, without adding water, and each bottle carries a serial number. The number of bottles, it says, will vary depending on the condition of each cask.

A project born of Taiwanese art and collector culture

Hsieh was born in 1949 in Hsinchu, Taiwan. In the 1980s, as chairman of a Taiwanese design association, he invited Japanese designers such as Tadanori Yokoo to Taiwan. Since 2012 he has devoted himself to making art. The project was set in motion by Chang Ching-ching, who founded the whisky museum Chief Whisky in Taiwan. A collector who has been involved in trade with Japan for more than 38 years, he is said to have struck up a rapport with Nishi Shuzo’s president, Mr Nishi, which is how the project began.

What stands out for European readers is that a young Japanese distillery is combining genuine Spanish sherry casks with Taiwanese art and addressing the global market from the outset. With only about 500 bottles of each of the four worldwide, the realistic way to get hold of one is to follow auction and specialist-shop listings for limited releases. If you do get the chance to taste it, first nose it neat, then add a few drops of water and compare how the sweetness from the sherry cask opens up.