LOCO FOR LOGO

Multiple Choice Time. Can you guess who this happy little fellow is?

A. 8-Bit Flower Emoji

B. Enemy from 1980s Legend of Zelda

C. Suntory Corporate Logo from 1990-2004

D. All of the above

I might argue the answer is D, but, actually, it’s C. The above logo appeared on Suntory bottles during the aforementioned time period, making it one of the key factors to use when determining a bottling date. 

Suntory Lion Crest Logo
from a 1989 release
 of Hibiki Whisky

Suntory’s prior logo, the Lion Crest, dates back to at least the 1950s.  So, if your bottle of Yamazaki 12 or Original Hibiki (No Age Statement) has the Lion Crest, you know it’s from before 1991. 

But it’s that Flower/Zelda crest that has an interesting, and slightly complicated, back story. Especially, when it’s official name is the Hibiki Crest – and that it isn’t directly related to Hibiki Whisky!

Hibiki Whisky was launched in 1989 celebrating the 90^th Anniversary of Suntory.  If this Hibiki Crest debuted at the same time, that would make sense, right?  But as you can see from above right image,  the initial 1989 offering sports a Lion Crest logo.  It probably wasn't until 1991 that the Hibiki Crest actually appeared on a bottle of Hibiki.

Meeting in Middle:
Lion Crest and
Hibiki Hanzi

After some research, I discovered that the Hibiki Crest was actually created even earlier for Suntory.  Back in 1986,  the company commissioned artist/designer Takenobu Igarashi to develop corporate art for the Suntory Music Hall. 

The concept appears to have been a merging of the then current Lion Crest and the Chinese Hanzi Character of "Hibiki."  Hibiki translates to echo, music, sound, reverberation and space - perfect for a concert hall.  

The powers that be at Suntory must have fallen in love with the Hibiki concept.  Only a few years later, they adopted the name for their first premium blended whisky.  And shortly thereafter the Hibiki Logo became the entire company's corporate identity from 1991-2004. 



In 2005, Suntory's corporate logo was changed to the current text based format and has been in place ever since.

The less said about the BeamSuntory logo, the better. The companies merged in 2014. Aside from one special in-house edition of Hibiki 12, the combined logo has not appeared on their Japanese Whiskies. 

Finally, while Hibiki 12 Year and 17 Year whiskies may be discontinued, the happy little Hibiki Crest lives on at the Suntory Music Hall.