jwhisky.de„The key to success is treating producers and end customers fairly and with integrity.“

With jwhisky.de and jsake.de, Juergen Liebenau and his business partner have built up a leading European online retailer specialising in Japanese whisky and sake. It all began in 2014 in a Munich cellar, with the vision of bringing hard-to-find Japanese whisky to the German market. In 2022, jsake.de was launched as the second business line, expanding the vision to include Japanese sake. Today, the company sells everything from affordable entry-level blends to rare distillates and craft sake from small family-run breweries, offering one of the most extensive selections of Japanese whisky and sake in Europe. J-BIG spoke to Juergen Liebenau, founder and managing director of JB Trade GmbH in Munich, about his contribution to the Japanese whisky boom in Germany, the current challenges facing the whisky and sake markets in Japan and Europe, the emerging synergies between the two business divisions and future plans.

J-BIG: What were you doing before jwhisky.de was launched in 2014?

Juergen Liebenau: It was my family who laid the foundations for my career. They were all huge fans of Asia, so my fascination with the continent developed naturally from an early age. After completing my International Business Administration degree, I spent a year working in Bangkok. Back then, although I had a work visa, you were only allowed to stay in the country for a limited time, so I had to leave regularly and used the opportunity to travel around Asia. It was in South Korea that I met a British man who was living in Japan. We became friends immediately, and and he introduced me to Japan on a personal level for the first time. Later, I worked in sales for KEYENCE, a Japanese manufacturer of measurement and camera systems. As all middle management and senior staff were Japanese, I was able to experience Japanese corporate culture first-hand.

J-BIG: How did you go from working in measurement technology to importing Japanese whisky?

Juergen Liebenau: The decisive impetus for my whisky business came from a small experiment: a friend of mine would regularly bring back bottles of whisky from his trips to Japan that simply weren’t available in Germany. In 2012, he gave me a few bottles of Kirin Fuji-Sanroku 50. Being in sales, I was naturally curious, so I listed a few bottles on eBay to see what would happen. The demand was huge. On New Year’s Eve that year, I suggested to my friend that we import Japanese whisky to Germany. We then put this idea into practice in 2014.

J-BIG: That sounds like a real bootstrapping adventure. What were the early years actually like?

Juergen Liebenau: One of the main challenges was that major Japanese spirits companies such as Suntory export only a small proportion of their products. In fact, only around a third of the whisky produced actually leaves Japan. This presented the first major hurdle in establishing business relationships with reliable suppliers, including those who could provide rare items not intended by the manufacturer for the European market. After that, it took a great deal of work to familiarise ourselves with Japanese and European law, as well as import and labelling regulations.

We started small. Our first warehouse was a cellar in Munich’s Schwanthalerhoehe district, costing 50 euros a month to rent. We financed the first shipment from Japan entirely out of our own pockets. Importing a 20-foot container with ten pallets of 400 bottles each requires you to advance a considerable amount of capital to cover the goods plus excise duty. We can manage that today, but in the beginning, we started with just a few pallets at a time and had to watch every euro closely.

In 2014, we achieved an annual turnover of 30,000 euros. Then we had a real stroke of luck: at the end of 2014, whisky expert Jim Murray named the Suntory Yamazaki Sherry Cask 2013 the world’s best whisky – and suddenly everyone wanted Japanese whisky. Even those who had previously told us that nobody was interested in it. From 2015 to 2019, turnover rose steadily and, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, we achieved the highest turnover in the company’s history to date, in the seven-figure range. And we did all this as a team of two, without any employees.

J-BIG: That sounds like a lot of work for two people.

Juergen Liebenau: That’s true. But it works very well because we have a clear division of responsibilities. Each of us is an expert in our own field. I’m the public face of the business, responsible for sales, purchasing, trade fairs and customer contact. My business partner is responsible for all IT and online marketing, including the online shop, SEO, and the technical infrastructure. Thanks to him, anyone searching for Japanese whisky online comes across our shop straight away. We don’t interfere in each other’s areas of responsibility. This may sound simple, but it’s not always a given. This division of roles works brilliantly because we can each put our ideas into practice with the necessary freedom.

My work experience at KEYENCE has stood me in good stead in my current role. There, I learnt a great deal about the Japanese approach to work and sales. I’ve always been impressed by how strongly the Japanese stand behind their products. For me, that’s the foundation of sales: if you’re not truly convinced, the customer will notice straight away. That’s what distinguishes a good salesperson from a bad one. I adopted that attitude while working at KEYENCE, and it continues to influence jwhisky.de and jsake.de to this day. Although I don’t drink much whisky myself, I am familiar with all our products, have visited all the distilleries in Japan in person and know exactly what we are selling.

J-BIG: What else has contributed to the success of jwhisky.de?

Juergen Liebenau: Precision, seriousness and reliability in business relationships were key factors. The Japanese are extremely loyal once they have placed their trust in someone. I have adopted this quality as a guiding principle for our own company, taking a long-term view. A satisfied customer will make repeat purchases. That is why we place great emphasis on service, always deciding in the customer’s favour when in doubt. We never make promises we cannot keep. In the whisky sector in particular, some customers have more expertise than the sales staff and will immediately notice if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Added to this is our consistently cost-conscious approach to business. Our fixed costs are low, so the ROI is correspondingly high. From the outset, we have refused to focus solely on products with high profit margins. While rare and expensive whiskies yield the highest percentage returns, they don’t help build a broad customer base. Our credo has always been that whisky is meant to be drunk, so we have something for everyone. Someone who buys an entry-level whisky today might come back tomorrow and buy a more expensive bottle because their curiosity has been piqued. Our range of products extends from 20 to 3,000 euros. This broad selection is currently paying off, as the market has changed considerably.

J-BIG: For readers who aren’t yet familiar with the subject: What does the Japanese whisky market look like? Who are the major players, and what has changed in recent years?

Juergen Liebenau: When we started out in 2014, three conglomerates dominated the market: Suntory, Nikka – which now belongs to the Asahi Group – and Kirin, the third major player, often overlooked in Europe. Suntory controls around 40 per cent of the entire Japanese drinks market and, despite global demand, exports only a fraction of its products abroad.

From around 2017/18 onwards, the market has changed radically: small, independent distilleries have sprung up in large numbers. In recent years, roughly 30 to 40 new distilleries have been established. The Japanese whisky market is now more diverse than ever before, much like the developments in Scotland or Ireland. At the same time, the major Japanese conglomerates have taken some very wise strategic steps: Suntory acquired Jim Beam, primarily to utilise its global distribution network and gain access to bourbon casks. Nikka owns Ben Nevis in Scotland, whilst Kirin owned Four Roses in Kentucky until 2026.

J-BIG: Demand for whisky has dipped slightly in recent years. What has happened?

Juergen Liebenau: The market has cooled considerably since around 2023, for a number of overlapping reasons. Firstly, young people are generally drinking less alcohol – this is a global phenomenon that did not exist in the same way during the last major whisky crisis. Pub cultures in Japan and Europe are slowly dying out. Secondly, purchasing power has fallen: the weak yen is putting a strain on Japanese consumers, and in Germany, after years of high inflation, people have less money to spend on premium products.

Thirdly, the speculative market has collapsed. A Hibiki 21, which three or four years ago could have fetched up to 1,300, now struggles to fetch 500 euros. The Chichibu Distillery, previously traded for between 1,300 and 2,000 euros, now barely fetches 600 euros. Added to this are geopolitical factors: the Chinese market, which for many years was a key driver of prices for premium spirits, has virtually collapsed due to economic and political tensions. This has also hit Japanese producers hard. And finally: the whisky boom has attracted many new players who have flooded the market. Often, they have focused more on packaging than on the contents, and this has put some customers off.

J-BIG: How are you responding to this change?

Juergen Liebenau: We are focusing on what has always been our strength: a customer-focused approach and a wide range of products across all price segments. The fact that the market is shifting from collectables and speculative items towards whisky intended for drinking is entirely in line with our philosophy. We sell a product that is meant to be drunk. Because we have always offered good products in the mid-range and lower price segments, we are less affected when the speculative market slumps.

At the same time, we are expanding our business relationships with wholesalers. This has enabled us to enter the sake business, as collaboration with restaurants and retailers is essential in that sector. This is also opening up new opportunities for whisky. And we are increasingly looking to Eastern Europe as a growth market. Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states – these are underestimated by many German retailers. These markets have a younger population, growing purchasing power and, crucially, people there still drink alcohol. I am currently in the process of establishing contacts and business relationships in these countries. We already have partners in Austria, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Lithuania who distribute our products. Things are going well and I am optimistic.

J-BIG: You’ve just mentioned your entry into the sake business. Since 2022, you have also been running a second business with jsake.de. The sake market is actually considered to be quite saturated. Why did you decide to take this step?

Juergen Liebenau: The claim that the market is saturated only applies to part of it. However, interesting sakes from small craft breweries are either difficult to find or very expensive in Europe. This puts off new customers and artificially limits the market size.

This is precisely where we step in: we import directly from producers, utilising our existing whisky infrastructure, which covers logistics, customs formalities, warehousing, and order fulfilment. This enables us to offer more competitive prices. Our products are not mass-produced, but high-quality goods at reasonable prices. We started in 2023 with around 800 bottles, increasing sales to almost 10,000 by 2025. Figures for 2026 already point to further growth, so we are confident that we will achieve a six-figure turnover from sake within the next two years.

J-BIG: Anyone who might want to drink sake with a meal or in a restaurant could always choose a glass of wine instead. Is it difficult to have a product that competes with one of Germany’s most popular drinks?

Juergen Liebenau: It is a challenge, but also an opportunity. Sake has one key advantage over wine: no tannins, no acidity.

And the Japan craze in Germany is undeniable. At a trade fair in a small town in Thuringia in the middle of summer, I served sake highballs with yuzu at our stand. It was a huge hit, and I was surprised by how many visitors had already heard of or tried sake.

However, sake itself is struggling with an image problem in Japan: young Japanese people associate it with older generations. At the same time, cheap imported wine, from Europe amongst other places, is flooding the market. Consequently, a bottle of wine that used to cost 1,400 yen is now available for between 600 and 700 yen. This is causing existential difficulties for many small sake breweries. Added to this is the problem of succession: I know of breweries that produce excellent products, but whose owners are in their early 70s and cannot find a successor. If many of these small businesses disappear in the next five to ten years, unique traditions and recipes will be lost.

J-BIG: What has your experience been like working with Japanese producers?

Juergen Liebenau: It is a symbiotic partnership. Demand for sake is falling in Japan, so the European market represents a significant opportunity for breweries. However, the bureaucratic hurdles involved in exporting products are almost impossible for small businesses to overcome. We have become experts in this field, so we can take this work off the producers’ hands. They sell to us in Japan, and we handle everything else. We value direct partnerships highly, because this means a larger share of the value generated remains with the producers. Fair trade is a core principle for us: producers must be fairly remunerated for their products because squeezing them is a sure way to cut off your nose to spite your face.

Nevertheless, there are certainly challenges. Some family-run businesses cling to traditional structures and find it hard to be flexible. For example, I once requested a delivery of sake in 300-millilitre bottles, but the producer had already planned to bottle it exclusively in 720-millilitre bottles. Instead of buying additional smaller bottles and setting aside some of the larger ones for next year, he turned me down. When working together both the importer and the producer must be willing to compromise.

However, there’s another side to it. I work with a brewery whose young successor has taken full control of the business. This is somewhat unusual by Japanese standards, where the older generation often continues to influence the company even after retiring. He is modern and open-minded, keen to experiment, and very good at thinking about his products in terms of the international market. It’s a real pleasure to work with partners like that.

The good thing is that, once you have a partner in Japan, you can rely on them. The Japanese are exceptionally loyal. Although it takes time to build a foundation of trust, once that’s established, you can be sure they’ll continue to work with you in the future. When we first entered the business, it was hard work, but now we’re reaping the benefits. Even if a competitor were to try to poach a producer, I know our partners would stay with us. That’s a sign of a resilient business relationship.

J-BIG: Earlier, you described the bureaucratic hurdles involved in importing from Japan: excise duty, labelling regulations, bottle sizes, and Japanese and EU law. Is this a competitive disadvantage or a barrier to entry that protects you?

Juergen Liebenau: In hindsight, it was both. The complexity took an enormous toll on us at the start – from Suntory’s distribution restrictions and the European EMCS system for cross-border alcohol duty to the requirement to relabel American 750-millilitre bottles as 700 millilitres for the German market. You can’t learn that from books; it’s something you gain through hard-won experience over many years.

This accumulated knowledge is now a real competitive advantage. If I had to start from scratch today, I wouldn’t have the strength to fight my way through this jungle. However, now that we have overcome these challenges and established our business structure, we are the ideal partners for Japanese breweries looking to export.

J-BIG: Where do you see jwhisky.de and jsake.de in five years’ time?

Juergen Liebenau: The whisky business is performing steadily – we’re well-known, and our customers know what they’re getting with us. In the sake sector, we’re currently at a similar stage to where we were with whisky eight or nine years ago. There is still a lot of untapped potential, which is why we’re focusing on expanding this line of business.

The coming years will be shaped by internationalisation. We will continue to expand our partner network in Eastern Europe, thereby tapping into neglected markets. If we succeed in this pioneering endeavour, it could be hugely rewarding for everyone involved.

Furthermore, we are evaluating other Japanese niche products for which we can make optimal use of our established import infrastructure. Our principles remain the same, whether it’s whisky, sake or whatever else Japan has to offer: treating producers fairly, not taking advantage of customers and exercising patience. What has sustained us from 2014 to the present day is no coincidence. If you build honest business relationships and think long term, you don’t need huge marketing budgets. The products speak for themselves – you just have to get them to the right people.