Image
Discover and bid on old, rare and collectible whiskies in our online auctions each month.
Miyagikyo
Founded
1969
Region
Japan
Status
Operational
Company
Production type
Single Grain,
Single Malt
Former name
Sendai
Miyagikyo is a Japanese whisky distillery located near Sendai in the Miyagi prefecture. It is the second to have been built by Masataka Taketsuru's Nikka Whisky Distilling Co, opened in 1969 in order to provide the company with more variety in the malt whisky available for its blends. The distillery was originally called Sendai, changing its name to Miyagikyo in 2001.
Although originally built solely for the purpose of malt whisky distilling, Miyagikyo also produces the single grain and a column-distilled malt whisky on Coffey stills moved there from the former Nishinomaya distillery between 1998 and 1999. These were mostly used for blending until introduced to the market as Nikka Coffey Grain and Nikka Coffey Malt in 2012 and 2014, respectively.
As is common in Japan, the single malt of Miyagikyo and Yoichi are marketed as subsets of the Nikka Whisky brand. The first core range product from Miyagikyo was the 12-year-old, released in the 1990s and labelled as Sendai as the distillery was still named at the time. Between 2001 and 2008, a further 10- and 15-year-old were added to the range.
In 2015 Nikka made the surprising announcement that stock shortages required it to discontinue all age statement whiskies across its entire portfolio. This included Miyagikyo and to date the non-age statement it released in 2016 is the sole proprietary release. It is joined, however, by regular annual limited editions and distillery exclusives.
Current owner
1969-present
Miyagikyo Distillery
Aoba Ward
Sendai
Miyagi 989-3433
Japan
Active brands
Single Grain,
Single Malt
