It may seem like a stretch to call a Japanese pioneer of biotechology, credited with the first isolation of adrenalin, a “whiskey man.” Nonetheless, for several pivotal years in his life, Jokichi Takamine was being financed for his research into a cheaper method of whiskey production by the Peoria-based Distilling and Cattle Feeding Company, also known as “The Whiskey Trust.”
Takamine was born on November 3, 1854, in the small town of Takaoka in Toyama Prefecture on the west coast of Japan. As shown here, it was a picturesque spot with views of both mountains and ocean. His birth came shortly after Commodore Matthew Peary’s expedition had opened Japan to the West. Eager to know “foreign science” better the government sent him to the University of Glasgow where he learned English and studied agriculture. He then returned to work in Japan.
When the New Orleans Cotton Exposition occurred in 1884, Takamine seemed the logical person to represent Japan as its commissioner. While there he rented an apartment in the French Quarter and met his landlord’s daughter, Caroline Field Hitch, shown here. They fell in love and, with her father’s blessing, were married. Returning to Japan with his bride, Takamine was put in charge of a fertilizer works near Tokyo.
The couple produced two sons during that period but all was not well. In Japan the blonde, blue-eyed Caroline drew stares wherever she went and was plagued by a mother-in-law who disapproved of her independent American ways. She begged to return to the U.S. To save his marriage, Takamine sought employment in America and decided to pursue an interest in distilling. The key was adapting the methods of brewing Japanese sake (rice wine) to making whiskey.
Central to distilling (and brewing beer) is an enzyme called diastase that breaks down starches into sugars that then can be transformed by yeast into alcohol. In the West the enzyme is obtained from malt made by germinating barley. In Japan, Takamine knew, the enzyme,called koji, is derived from a fungus grown on rice and is far more active and less expensive to prepare than malt. He saw commercial opportunities for the process in the American liquor business and wrote letters of solicitation to major distilling outfits.
In Peoria, Illinois, Takamine sparked interest in one of the most important liquor executives in the Nation. Shown here is Joseph Greenhut, the head of the Distilling and Cattle Feeding Company, the monopoly controlling dozens of distilleries in the Midwest and known popularly as “The Whiskey Trust.” “Come to America,” Greenhut is said to have written to the Japanese scientist, “and we will see what can be done.” With financial help from Caroline’s father, the family departed Japan for Illinois. Here the story can be continued as illustrated with pictures from a Japanese "manga" (comic book) that covered this chapter of Takamine’s life.
After meeting Joichi in person Greenhut was sufficiently impressed to give the Japanese scientist a contract to allow him to set up a research laboratory. This facility, given heavy security by the Trust, was located inside the malt house of the Woolner Grove Distillery, along the river on the south side of Peoria. Takamine called his lab “The White House.”
The Woolner brothers, Adolph, Sam and Ignatius, were emigres from Hungary, who had arrived in the U.S. about 1871 and purchased a distillery, one of several they came to own over time. The Woolners were enthusiastic founding members of the Whiskey Trust. Adolph served as a vice president of the monopoly until his death in 1891. It was natural that Greenhut would trust the Woolners, his faithful acolytes, with Takamine’s secret research.
In the end the effort was not revealed by competition espionage but by a news release from the Trust itself in February 1891. The Chicago Tribune featured a story that predicted that through the use of Takamine’s koji diastase the distilling process would be made simpler and faster, resulting in a lower cost for whiskey. Skeptics of the Trust believed that Greenhut had used the Japanese scientist’s work and announcements about his success as a way of manipulating the stock price of the Distilling and Cattle Feeding Company. It also would have heartened those distillers who had signed onto the combine in the hope of quick and easy profits.
Meanwhile back at his White House laboratory, Takamine was pressing ahead and eventually found a way to make his process operational. The Manhattan Distillery, a Woolner Peoria property was converted to his use. Shortly after the Japanese scientist’s equipment was installed the building caught fire, one of suspicious origin. The manga places the blame on malt manufacturers and their workers who prepared the traditional distillery enzymes from barley malt. They had expressed strong objections to Takamine’s koji method, fearing for their jobs. The Peoria newspaper noted that the blaze was confined to “a small frame tower and under favorable circumstances could easily have been extinguished.” The first hose to arrive with firefighters was not long enough to reach from the nearest hydrant. When a longer one arrived, no water flowed from the hydrant and firemen watch the building burn to the ground.
Undeterred, Takamine rebuilt and after three years of effort finally got a distillery using his koji method up and running. Eventually he was mashing 3,000 bushels of corn per day. He manufactured a lower cost whiskey which Jokichi called “Bonzai,” a greeting given to the Emperor of Japan meaning, “May you live ten thousand years!” As shown here, a massive explosion and fire later destroyed much of the Woolner’s Peoria distillery.
In 1894 the Whiskey Trust, now under pressure from dissident distillers and experiencing financial problems, broke off its relationship with Takamine. It took Bonzai brand whiskey off the market and reverted entirely to creating the essential enzymes from malt. While continuing to advocate koji over malt, Takamine himself suffered financially in legal battles with the Trust and his money ran out. Wife Caroline was forced to sell her art collection and the couple had to ask their families for money to survive.
In his best-selling book, “Proof: The Science of Booze,” science writer Adam Rogers speculates that the whiskey-making world would look considerably different if Takamine’s ideas had prevailed. The cumbersome malting process would be unnecessary, he contends, and different grains might have been brought into the mix. “The Asian markets for whiskey that are so lucrative today might have cropped up 150 years sooner….” Rogers contends.
Takamine’s failure in the whiskey trade turned him to the pharmaceutical business. He named his diastase extract “Taka-Diastase” and advertised it as a remedy for indigestion. The product was so successful that the large Detroit drug firm Parke-Davis took over its manufacture and marketing. In time Jokichi became several times a millionaire. He and Caroline built a mansion in New York City as he continued to be active as a scientist, including isolating adrenalin. He also started new biotechnical enterprises in Japan and the United States. Takamine is remembered in the Nation’s Capitol for donating 3,020 Japanese cherry trees in 1912 to decorate the Tidal Basin. Their blooming annually brings thousands to Washington.
Troubled by liver problems for much his life, Takamine found his symptoms growing worse as he entered his 68th year. After fighting the disease for more than six months, he died in July 1922. The Japanese scientist was buried in New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery in the mausoleum shown here. 
Caroline, who re-married four years after Takamine’s death, died at the age of 88 in 1954 and is buried with him. Appropriately for a man who himself was a bridge between America and Japan, the mausoleum features a stained glass window depicting Mount Fuji and the flags of both countries.
Note: More details about the malting process can be found in my post of November 22, 2017 that features Frederick Lutz, “Master Maltster of Louisville.”
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