Masataka Taketsuru

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Masataka Taketsuru (竹鶴 政孝, Taketsuru Masataka; 20 June 1894 – 29 August 1979) was a Japanese chemist and businessman who helped establish whisky production in Japan and founded Nikka Whisky Distilling. Born to a family that had owned a sake brewery since 1733, he traveled to Scotland in 1918 to study organic chemistry and distilling. After graduating, Taketsuru joined Settsu Shuzō, a prominent Japanese liquor company founded in the early 1900s, known for producing alcohol including whisky. With a plan to make Japanese whisky, Settsu Shuzo had sent him to Scotland to study the art of whisky production. He then returned to Japan, where he worked at Kotobukiya (later Suntory) and helped establish Japan’s first commercial whisky distillery at Yamazaki under founder Shinjiro Torii. In 1934, he founded his own company, Dai Nippon Kaju Co., Ltd., initially producing fruit juice in Hokkaido before beginning whisky production; the company later became known as Nikka Whisky from a contraction of the juice company name.