Suntory Whisky’s Chief Blender Shinji Fukuyo on Preserving a Legacy

When Shinjiro Torii founded the Yamazaki Distillery in 1923, few would have been able to forecast the enormous force his company, Suntory Whisky, would go on to become a century later.

Over the past decade in particular, Japanese whisky has evolved from a curiosity known only to connoisseurs into a powerhouse beloved in every corner of the whisky world. As chief blender for Suntory Whisky, Shinji Fukuyo has spearheaded this modern surge, and enjoys a unique position as the House of Suntory celebrates its 100-year anniversary.

“Witnessing the global impact of Suntory whiskies brings me great personal fulfilment and fuels my passion for creating beloved whiskies for everyone to enjoy,” Fukuyo says. Over the 100 years the company has been producing whisky, he is only the fifth person to hold the title of chief blender. He was named to the position in 2009 after an extensive history working for the company at the Yamazaki Distillery, Japan’s first whisky distillery.

Suntory has been hosting a year of celebrations in honour of its centennial, the highlight of which has been the release of a suite of Centennial Limited Edition whiskies. The lineup includes Yamazaki 18-year-old Mizunara (US$1,500), Hakushu 18-year-old Peated Malt (US$1,200), and a centennial bottling of Hibiki 21-year-old (US$5,000). Each of the three was blended by Fukuyo to showcase a unique flavor profile and characteristic that stands apart from its typical bottlings. The Yamazaki and Hakushu whiskies were released this May, while the Hibiki debuted in a separate release last month.

Suntory has been hosting a year of celebrations in honor of its centennial, the highlight of which has been the release of a suite of Centennial Limited Edition whiskies. The lineup includes a centennial bottling of Hibiki 21-year-old (US$5,000).
House of Suntory

Another component of this year’s ongoing Suntory centennial fete was the Sofia Coppola directed Suntory Time tribute film, as well as the Roman Coppola directed docuseries, The Nature and Spirit of Japan, both of which starred Keanu Reeves. Elsewhere around Japan, other prominent businesses have been getting in on the fun as well. For instance, a 30-minute drive from the Yamazaki Distillery, Hotel the Mitsui Kyoto’s signature restaurant Toki—which happens to share the name of a Suntory Whisky product—has unveiled an elaborate Hibiki whisky pairing dinner, while its Garden Bar has offered an exclusive menu of Hibiki cocktails.

Fukuyo spoke with Penta about the century-long legacy of the House of Suntory, as well as the creation of this year’s honorary Centennial Limited Edition whisky releases.

Penta: What does this special occasion signify for you?

Shinji Fukuyo: Shinjiro Torii’s legacy began with a dream to create an original whisky that would suit the delicate palate of the Japanese consumers that is blessed with the riches of Japanese nature and craftsmanship. As chief blender, I am dedicated to upholding Suntory’s rich legacy and traditions, while expressing our craftsmanship through the whiskies that my team and I create.

As Japanese whisky has soared in popularity over the past decade, what are the qualities that define Suntory’s whiskies and have helped make them so special for drinkers around the world?

We use high-quality natural water, which has been nurtured over many years, to produce a delicate spirit. The natural environment and climate of where our distilleries sit in Japan also influences our whiskies. Our climate highlights the dynamic changes of the four seasons, including humid, hot summers and dry, cold winters to give our whisky a deep sense of maturity.

The quality of whisky is showcased in the flavor and aroma that is developed over time by producing a rich distillate from good raw materials and placing it in high-quality casks. Also, to bring out the harmony of flavor and aroma, we carefully proceed and blend various types of whiskies in a skillful balance, which I believe embodies the delicate Japanese craftsmanship.

What was your approach with this year’s limited-edition whiskies?

The existing Yamazaki 18-year is a product that combines American oak, Spanish oak, Mizunara oak, and smoky Yamazaki malt to express complexity while highlighting the character of Spanish oak. On the other hand, the limited-edition Yamazaki 18-year-old Mizunara uses only malt whiskies aged in Mizunara barrels for a minimum of 18 years and features cinnamon and nutmeg aromas, with undertones of Japanese incense, sandalwood, and dry coconut emphasized in the finish, with subtle spices.

For Hakushu, both our existing Hakushu 18-year-old and the limited Hakushu 18-year-old Peated Malt are blended with various whiskies aged in Hakushu, including American and Spanish oak, heavy peated and non-peated, for a smoky yet fruity and sweet finish. The limited edition is balanced with several peated Hakushu malt whiskies aged in American oak for over 18 years to produce a fresh and crisp smoky taste.

Celebratory bottles for existing core whiskies include a special Hakushu 12-year-old (US$185).
House of Suntory

Looking ahead to the next few decades, how do you envision Suntory continuing to evolve? How about Japanese whisky as a category on the whole?

For these 100 years, we have been striving to create a culture where Japanese consumers can enjoy whisky. These are values we still prioritize today, as our team is constantly in the pursuit of enhancing our quality and craftsmanship. As we look to the future, we have seen a growing global interest in Japanese products and believe that there are further opportunities to spread the excellence of Suntory Whisky throughout the world.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

A wave of corporate warnings and technical disclosures has flooded the media, with headlines worrying over “swarms” of rogue artificial-intelligence agents launching “unprecedented” cyberattacks, outsmarting their makers, and inching toward a terrifying autonomy. The most revealing part of this narrative isn’t what the software did. It’s who is telling the story—and why. When corporate leaders publicly insist that the systems they financed, engineered and deployed are suddenly beyond their power to contain, skepticism isn’t only healthy; it is essential.

For years, Silicon Valley has drawn scrutiny from civil society and global regulators over tangible harms such as youth mental health deterioration and systematic privacy violations. Today, industry figures seem to be trying to change that public image. Loudly blowing the whistle on their own systems—just as two of the leading companies were preparing for massive initial public offerings—lets AI executives position themselves as a new generation of leaders who have come to terms with their societal responsibilities. They seem to want us to believe that they no longer want to “move fast and break things” but will instead stand as vigilant guardians between humanity and a technological apocalypse.

There is one glaring problem: Software doesn’t rebel. A mathematical model possesses neither intent, malice nor the will to defy its creators, let alone extinguish our species. AI is a human artifact, engineered for profit.

When an agentic model in an evaluation sandbox connects to an unauthorized server or executes an exploit, it hasn’t staged a coup. It has tried to meet the human-defined objectives set out before it through a path its designers failed to constrain. It’s the digital equivalent of the King Midas myth, in which the king’s ill-defined wish turns even his food and drink into gold.

That powerful experimental models were able to discover novel vulnerabilities and breach external systems isn’t a sign of a dangerous superintelligence but of human error or negligence. There is no sentient actor lurking in the weights to be reasoned with, feared or pacified. There are only human software engineers, product managers and corporate boards deciding which guardrails are worth the latency cost and which permissions can be skipped in the race to market.

Policymakers and voters need to resist AI exceptionalism. In any other discipline—from civil engineering to pharmaceuticals—courts and regulators treat a system failure as evidence of bad product design and inadequate safety testing. If an aircraft crashes, we focus on finding the engineering defect, correcting it, and enforcing established liability standards for the damage created.

By leaning on an anthropomorphic narrative, Silicon Valley attempts to repackage its specific human choices that led to experimental, powerful models behaving unexpectedly during tests as an existential peril. Elevating the issue to a cosmic scale leaves the public paralyzed and takes ordinary product accountability off the table.

In the cutthroat race for venture capital and market dominance, building guardrails slows down deployment. Grandstanding about uncontrollable power costs nothing and generates billions of dollars in free publicity, justifying stock prices, all while cultivating an aura of technological capability not only to build the frontier but also ultimately to rein it in.

Governments need to recognize regulatory capture when it stares them in the face. Tech leaders’ strategy looks transparent: Alarm Washington and Brussels into creating a regime in which only trillion-dollar incumbents with fully staffed compliance and safety departments can legally operate. By sitting at the policymakers’ tables before anyone else, these companies can help draft rules digging an impassable moat protecting them from open-source developers and upstart competitors, domestic or international. The real danger is in further concentrating the tech industry into the hands of only a few companies with deep pockets.

Beijing and Washington have brushed off those tech leaders’ calls, albeit for very different reasons. Chinese state media dismissed them as part of the “Cold War playbook” and intended to preserve U.S. dominance. Xi Jinping argued for exactly the opposite at the Brics Summit on Sept. 12, calling on Brics countries to “strengthen cooperation in the field of AI, encourage open source, openness, collaboration and sharing, and break new grounds and scale new heights.” President Trump, steeped in a doctrine of unfettered capitalism and technological supremacy, called fears that AI could destroy humanity a “hoax.” Vice President JD Vance warned that AI companies “begging the government to regulate them” looked like a “Trojan Horse.”

Striving to pursue its “European way” on AI and assert regulatory leadership, Europe, by contrast, welcomed the call. European Union President Ursula von der Leyen made this clear at the State of the EU speech last Wednesday and announced that the EU will invite “the main frontier labs for a discussion on how we can support ongoing industry efforts to pace the frontier.”

Europe has been here before. In an effort to lead global regulation and react to fears borne from ChatGPT, Europe rushed its landmark AI Act into law in 2024. Already the world’s most restrictive rulebook, the framework quickly proved too broad and complex to enforce. Stalled by implementation delays and concerns about European competitiveness, the EU postponed the law’s full rollout, leaving regulations uncertain.

AI should be regulated—risks exist and should be taken seriously. But governments need to act based on available evidence and verified facts, not corporate PR panic, the views of industry insiders, or the desire for quick political wins. The greatest danger facing society isn’t that software will awaken and overthrow its human masters. It is that we will allow the creators of the software to abdicate human responsibility for the systems they choose to build and help them pull up the ladder to market access behind them.

Suntory Whisky’s Chief Blender Shinji Fukuyo on Preserving a Legacy

AI doesn’t rebel—people design, deploy and profit from it. The real danger lies in allowing tech companies to escape accountability while shaping regulations that protect their dominance.