One of Japan’s leading whisky bloggers discusses the shortage of good Japanese single malts, the state of the country’s whisky industry, and how to order a highball.
nce upon a time, you could walk into a shop in Japan and buy whole casks of Yamazaki whisky from Suntory. Today, you’re lucky if you can get a bottle of 12-year old Yamazaki Single Malt. Earlier this year, a bottle of Yamazaki 50 became the most expensive bottle of Japanese whisky ever sold, after it was purchased at auction for about $299,000.
Brian Ashcraft has spent the past decade studying Japanese whisky. His new book, “Japanese Whisky: The Ultimate Guide to the World’s Most Desirable Spirit with Tasting Notes from Japan’s Leading Whisky Blogger,” explores how the spirit’s global popularity has exploded in recent years. Ashcraft, who is based in Osaka and has been living in Japan for 17 years, recently spoke to Roads & Kingdoms about the state of Japan’s whisky industry—and why it continues to become a popular spirit among whisky aficionados.
Roads & Kingdoms: It’s hard to find a good Japanese whisky in the market these days, unless you’re willing to pay an exorbitant amount. Can you explain this shortage?
Brian Ashcraft: The Japanese whisky market hit its peak in 1983, and then sales started to drop. People had been drinking brown spirits for decades, but clear spirits, like shochu, started to become more popular during the 1980s. The image of whisky in Japan was more of “Oh, that’s what my dad drinks.” Japanese brands like Suntory and Nikka weren’t selling as much whisky as before, so they started producing less.
But whisky sales started picking back up around 2006 when people began to rediscover the spirit. About two years later, Suntory did a brilliant job reintroducing the highball, a drink made of whisky and soda that has long had a following in Japan. That helped turn the ship around. People started buying a lot of Japanese whisky, but prices shot up because there was such a small amount of stock left over from the 1980s. Since then, prices have continued to rise. The upside is that Japanese whisky is finally getting the recognition that it deserves. The downside is that you can’t walk into a store and get certain bottles anymore.