‘Spirits for Small Change’ (2nd edition) raises over 9m yen

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

‘Spirits for Small Change’ has just announced the results of the second edition of their bi-annual charity event.

The second edition raised a total of 9,146,564 yen (roughly 76,000EUR / 80,000USD), which was donated in its entirety to Bridge for Smile, a non-profit organization active all over Japan that seeks to provide underprivileged children on the verge of adulthood with the support they need to start independent lives. Part of the money raised by Spirits for Small Change will be used to aid children affected by the 2016 earthquake in Kumamoto.

From left to right: David Croll (Whisk-e), Stefan Van Eycken & Scott van Leenen (Spirits for Small Change), Shin Araya (BrewDog Japan) and Atsushi Kamata (Bridge for Smile)

‘Spirits for Small Change’ was founded in 2014 by yours truly, and is run together with Scott van Leenen. The second edition revolved around two special bottlings – a superb 19yo Arran single cask and a more limited vatting of Hanyu and Chichibu malt provided by Ichiro Akuto (Venture Whisky). We wish to thank Isle of Arran Distillers and Whisk-e, their Japanese importer, as well as Ichiro Akuto and Number One Drinks for making these bottlings possible.

But many more kind folk were involved and we wish to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the second edition of this charity event: Whisk-e for their continued structural support, the many companies and individuals who kindly contributed bottles to the charity event (see below), Mark Watt and everyone at Cadenheads for creating another fabulous one-off bottling for the event, the staff at BrewDog Roppongi and Malt City for taking care of the practicalities surrounding the event, and everyone who showed their support by attending the event,  buying / bidding on one of the charity bottles or sending us kind words of encouragement. It means a lot to us and to the children who benefit from the work of Bridge for Smile.

Structural support for “Spirits for Small Change” is provided by:
BrewDog Japan, Whisk-e and Number One Drinks Co.

“Spirits for Small Change” gratefully acknowledges the liquid support of (in alphabetical order):
Archives (The Netherlands), Bar Agricole (U.S.), Bar Zoetrope (Japan), Cadenheads (Scotland), Club Qing (Hong Kong), ePower (Japan), La Maison du Whisky (France), Magnus Fagerstrom (Sweden), Liquors Hasegawa (Japan), Heinz-Jorg Konigs (Germany), The Mash Tun (Japan), Malt Bar South Park (Japan), Malts of Scotland (Germany), Mr. and Mrs. Nakajima (Japan), Hasse Peters (Sweden), Sansibar (Germany), Venture Whisky (Japan), The Whisky Exchange (U.K.), Stefan Wieschollek (Germany)