For the first time the honor to be called The Best Whisky of the World 2015 has gone to Japan.
There was not much a surprise as Japanese whisky has been a rising star on the market for some time now.
Although Japanese whiskies has been produced since the early 1920s, only recently that the Japanese brands have become widely recognized.
Before 2000, the market for Japanese whiskies was almost entirely domestic, although this has changed in 2001 when Nikka’s 10-year Yoichi single malt won ‘Best of the Best’ at Whisky Magazine’s awards.
Since then, Japanese whiskies have won several awards, including top honors in international competitions.
The style of Japanese whisky is very similar to the scotch. To understand where this similarity is coming from we need to shift back to beginning.
Everything started when Shinjiro Torii who was importing western liquor. Very successful but not satisfied he embarked on a new venture which was to become his life’s work: making Japanese whisky for Japanese people. He built the first Japanese whisky distillery in Yamazaki and hired Masataka Taketsure as a distillery executive. Taketsuru had studied the art of distilling in Scotland and brought this knowledge back to Japan. He played a key part in helping Torii established the Yamazaki Distillery but eventually decided to leave the company in 1934 to open his own distillery known to us as Nikka.
In recent years a number of blind tastings have been organized which included Japanese single malts in the line with the best scotch. On more than one occasion, the result has shown Japanese single malts scoring higher than their Scottich counterparts.
Click Here for Japanese Whisky collection at The Oaks Cellars