Fukano Shuzo began in 1823, when Tokiji Fukano, a rice merchant from Kurume, started making shochu, a spirit made from Japanese rice, in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto Prefecture.1,2 In 2023 the company got a licence to make whisky.2
In 1952 the business was reorganized as a limited partnership, and in 1985 the sixth-generation head of the family took charge.2 Seiichi Fukano, the seventh generation, became head of the company in 2015.1,2 For its shochu, it ferments in clay pots, a method it says it inherited from the Edo period.1,2 The company uses brewing water from deep underground in the Kuma Basin.1
By 2021, Whisky Advocate reported, Fukano had exported cask-aged rice spirit to the U.S. for a few years; there it meets the rules for whisky.3 In Japan it could be called neither whisky nor shochu, the latter because of its colour from ageing; its labels read "Distilled from rice, product of Japan."3 Voluntary 2021 guidelines from Japan's spirits makers require malted barley in Japanese whisky, which rice whisky lacks.3
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