T A K A M I N E W RI T T E N B Y G A B E T O T H
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Takamine Whiskey is adding a coda to the revolution in bourbon that never was, or perhaps opening a whole new chapter in the way that whiskey production is imagined.
W H I S K E Y
Produced using 100 percent pearled barley — no malt, no exogenous enzymes — the Japanese spirit relies on koji to convert starch to fermentable sugars and is named for the researcher who nearly jump-started the use of koji in American bourbon production more than 100 years ago. Jokichi Takamine was already a successful Japanese chemist and researcher when, in the 1890s, he was awarded the first biological patent in the United States for the production of the diastatic enzyme while conducting research for the U.S. Whiskey Trust in Peoria, Illinois. Takamine had developed a method to convert starch for bourbon production — traditionally reliant on malted barley for its enzymes — faster, more efficiently, with higher yield, and amazing flavor, according to Chris Pellegrini of Honkaku Spirits, which imports Takamine whiskey. The secret was koji (Aspergillus oryzae), a fungus that produces a wide variety of enzymes and is used in the production of sake, soy sauce, and miso. When combined with the reach of the Trust, a large proportion of bourbon production in the country was poised to be made using koji. However, Pellegrini said, the part of the facility where Takamine was doing his research mysteriously burnt down, and when the fire department arrived in response to the fire, they found the water shut off. “It was going to essentially put the maltsters out of business if he was successful. It was going to change bourbon entirely,” he said. “It was this point in American history where something was so close to flipping. The bourbon we drink today could have been made with koji. Koji whiskey could have been an American thing.” By the time Takamine had recreated his research, Pellegrini said, the Trust had been broken apart by the state as part of the broader trust-busting era. “They had actually started producing whiskey, they had barrels and barrels of it,” he said. “Nobody knows what happened to it, they probably blended it into other products or something.” It was a rare failure for a quietly humble man who made multiple fortunes on his research, including isolating a diastase enzyme for fertilizer and isolating the hormone adrenaline. “This is one of his failed experiments, and we felt, let’s try and run it back a little bit,” Pelligrini said. “It could have been so consequential.” That’s why, when he and his partner at Honkaku came across the barreled whiskey stashed away at Shinozaki Brewery and Distillery, they wanted to import it under the Takamine name. The Takamine family has the name in a trust, but they were convinced to grant Honkaku commercial rights to the name, the first time the family had done so.
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