When a Living National Treasure Meets a Century of Craft

十四代 今泉今右門

(referring to Imaizumi Imaemon XIV, the 14th generation master of the Nabeshima porcelain tradition who collaborated on the bottle design.)

There are rare moments when two distinct worlds of mastery converge — and the result is something that transcends both.

The Suntory Blended Japanese Whisky 2025 is one such moment. Born from the union of Suntory's fifth Chief Blender Shinji Fukuyo and Imaizumi Imaemon XIV, a designated Living National Treasure of Japan, this is not simply a whisky.

It is a vessel carrying 400 years of Arita porcelain tradition, the seasonal poetry of citrus, nandina, lily and camellia painted in platinum glaze, and a liquid soul drawn from the finest malts of Yamazaki, Hakushu and Chita — some aged over 40 years. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. Every detail of this collaboration was conceived to bring the terroir and spirit of Japan to the world, brightly shining, and bursting with vitality.

The Bottle — A Brightly Shining Light, Bursting with Vitality

The vessel itself tells a story before a single drop is poured.

An octagonal shape with a distinctive twist — a form believed to invite good fortune — the bottle is entirely hand-crafted porcelain, brought to life through the centuries-old traditions of the Imaemon kiln.

Delicate snowflakes rendered in light and shade through the sumihajiki technique, passed down since the Edo era, drift across the surface alongside the usuzumi underglazing perfected by Imaemon XIV himself.

Plants long cherished by the Japanese — citrus, nandina, lily, camellia — dance across the bottle as if passing through the four seasons.

Binding it all together is the platinum glaze, a jewel-like innovation pioneered by Imaemon XIV, which shimmers and shifts in response to the light around it.
This is not decoration. It is a living painting.

The Liquid — Light, Spun in Layers and in Rows

Inside the bottle, Chief Blender Shinji Fukuyo has constructed a whisky of extraordinary depth and harmony.

Yamazaki American oak cask malt aged more than 25 years is married with Spanish oak cask malt matured for over 40 years, building a foundation of sweetly rich complexity.

Chita grain whisky is layered over this to bring brilliance and vitality, while a rare 40-year-old Yamazaki Mizunara oak cask malt adds a dimension found nowhere else on earth.

A softly smoky Hakushu malt completes the blend, lending the transparency and elegance that defines great Japanese whisky.

The result, in the glass, is a deep amber that opens into a vibrantly rich nose with notes of kumquat syrup — clear, alive and full of energy.

The palate is sweetly mellow, expansive and thick, before giving way to a finish that is bracingly acidic and pleasurably bitter. It lingers, like a season passing.

The Artisan — Imaizumi Imaemon XIV

To understand this collaboration, you need to understand the man behind the porcelain. Born in 1962 in the town of Arita, Saga Prefecture — the birthplace of Japanese porcelain — Imaizumi Imaemon XIV graduated from Musashino Art University in 1985 before entering the family business at the Imaemon kiln in 1990.

In 2002, he succeeded to the name Imaizumi Imaemon XIV, carrying forward a lineage that stretches back over four centuries.

In 2009, the Japanese government awarded him the Medal with Purple Ribbon. In 2014, he was designated a Living National Treasure as the holder of an Important Intangible Cultural Property — overglaze enamel decorated porcelain.

His life's pursuit is what he calls modern beauty: honouring the prestigious Nabeshima ware techniques of Arita while pushing them forward through his own sensitivities, including the usuzumi underglazing and platinum glaze innovations that define his contemporary voice.

The Blender — Shinji Fukuyo

On the whisky side stands a man of equal distinction. Shinji Fukuyo joined Suntory in 1984, spending years across the Hakushu Distillery and the Blender's Room before travelling to Scotland in 1996, where he studied at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and worked at Morrison Bowmore Distillers in Glasgow.

That deep immersion in both Japanese and Scotch whisky traditions shaped the breadth of vision he brought back to Suntory. In 2009, he became Suntory's fifth Chief Blender — and in 2024, he was recognised as Master Blender of the Year at the prestigious International Spirits Challenge.

When Fukuyo speaks of this whisky, he speaks of Japan's terroir — the distinctive character that emerges when the malt and grain spirits of Yamazaki, Hakushu and Chita are woven together into something that could only have been made here, in this country, by these hands.

A Crystal of Beauty, Delivered to the World

The Japanese have long understood that beauty lives in the changing of seasons — in the subtle, ever-shifting qualities of nature that reward those who pay close attention. This whisky, and the porcelain vessel that holds it, ask you to do exactly that. To slow down.

To look closely at the snowflakes and the platinum shimmer. To nose the kumquat and feel the warmth of decades of oak. To recognise that what you are holding is the result of two masters, two crafts, and one shared belief — that Japan has something extraordinary to offer the world.

This is the Suntory Blended Japanese Whisky 2025. And it is, in every sense, brightly shining.

Written by the team at JapanWhisky

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