Highlights
- Studio Ghibli has collaborated with a whiskey brand from Okinawa to create a limited edition whiskey called Ukiyo, with a box design and artwork by Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki.
- The bottle features a stylized drawing of Totoro in the style of an inei, a traditional Japanese seal used by artists, adding to the traditional style of Ukiyo’s packaging.
- The whiskey is described as having a smoky and spicy flavor with hints of banana, spearmint, cinnamon, and bitter chocolate, and can be purchased for ¥7,800 ($50 USD) from Okinawa Blue physical shops or their online store.
For otaku, Japan is most famous for anime. For movie buffs, it is most famous for the internationally renowned Studio Ghibli. And for alcohol lovers, Japan is famous for whiskey. Now, there is a rare instance where all three of these realms are overlapping, and for people who love all three, this is exciting news indeed. A new label has been designed for a big Japanese whiskey brand by none other than the founders of Studio Ghibli.
Studio Ghibli was founded by Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki officially on June 15th, 1985, and has been making history ever since. In fact, 5 out of the 10 highest-grossing Japanese movies of all time are from Studio Ghibli. The animation studio has released movies that have become popular around the globe, with iconic characters and style that set them apart from other movies, both Western and Japanese. Studio Ghibli has had major partnerships with other studios as well, most famously the Walt Disney Company, and even has a museum and theme park in Japan.
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While Studio Ghibli has had some interesting collaborations in the past year, including with big brands like UNIQLO and Levi’s, this one is unique. It is more of a subtle nod than most, which suits Studio Ghibli’s style – they are not known for being flashy, and their latest film The Boy and the Heron famously had no promotional material at all. The whiskey collaboration is with a distillery from Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost prefecture, called Kumesen Shuzo. The name of this specific whiskey is Ukiyo, meaning “floating world.”
You may recognize the word Ukiyo from the famous “Ukiyo-e” art, which are well-known woodblock prints that let us see what Japan was like before photographs. In the case of Ukiyo whiskey, the box design and artwork were created by Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki. They both made their own unique contributions to the box’s design. Suzuki, who has gotten into Japanese calligraphy, wrote the kanji for the whiskey’s name, and his brushstrokes are what are on the bottle. Miyazaki drew Studio Ghibli’s most recognizable character, Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro, on the gold sphere.
The Totoro may not look the way you expect it to, but there is a reason for that. It is done in the style of an inei, which is a seal that Japanese artists may use in place of their signature. That is why the drawing is more stylized than Totoro usually looks, and adds to the traditional style of Ukiyo’s box. Kumesen Shuzo describes the whiskey’s flavor as, “smoky and spicy with a hint of banana, giving way to notes of spearmint, cinnamon, and bitter chocolate.”
If you want to buy one of these limited bottles of Studio Ghibli whiskey, they are already on sale in Okinawa Blue physical shops, and can also be purchased via their online store. At the time of writing, it was not sold out yet, but knowing how famous Studio Ghibli is and how quickly things often sell out in Japan, we don’t recommend waiting if you are planning to buy it. A 700ml bottle will cost you ¥7,800 ($ 50 USD). While it is not cheap for Japanese whiskey, you pay for the limited edition art on the box and bottle as well.
Source: SoraNews24
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