ASIA / PACIFIC
April 3, 2017
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Japan one-ups Scotch with whisky, coveted around the world
PRIZED WHISKY. Suntory’s chief blender,
Shinji Fukuyo, is seen at the Suntory distillery in
Yamazaki, near Kyoto, western Japan. “What’s impor-
tant for whisky is that its deliciousness must deepen
with aging, sitting in the casks for a long time,” said
Fukuyo, 55, while demonstrating how he examines the
whisky in a glass, swirlling the crystalline amber spirit
against the light. (AP Photo/Koji Ueda)
By Yuri Kageyama
AP Business Writer
AMAZAKI, Japan — A dim storage
room surrounded by bamboo
groves and pastoral hills is filled
wall-to-wall with 3,000 wooden barrels.
Here sleeps, for years, sometimes decades,
prized Japanese whisky.
The Suntory distillery in Yamazaki,
near the ancient capital of Kyoto, is where
the first drop of made-in-Japan malt
whisky was distilled in 1924.
These days, Japanese whisky is winning
accolades from around the world, often
beating the products from Scotland its
makers set out to emulate.
In 2003, the Yamazaki 12 Years single
malt whisky became the first Japanese
whisky to win the gold medal at the
International Spirits Challenge, the most
authoritative liquor competition in the
world. Last year, Hibiki, another Suntory
label, won the World’s Best Blended
Whisky prize at the World Whiskies
Awards, for the fourth time. A bottle of
Yamazaki Sherry Cask, aged 25 years,
fetches thousands of dollars each.
“They have a lot more earthiness to
them. They are much more a product of
their environment,” Wes Barbee, a
23-year-old consultant from Houston,
gushed as he joined dozens of Japanese
and foreign tourists visiting the Yamazaki
distillery and lining up for a taste.
“American and Canadian whisky has
nothing on this. It’s mass production. This
is very intimate. The flavors are carefully
chosen,” he said.
Japan Inc. abounds with stories of
manufacturers like automaker Toyota
Motor Corp. and musical instrument
manufacturer Yamaha Corp. that at first
imitated western pioneers in their
industries but ended up matching if not
outdoing them.
Suntory founder Shinjiro Torii was
determined to introduce Scotch to Japan.
Overcoming early failures, he eventually
adapted his methods to distill a whisky
palatable to Japanese.
Experts believe that aside from Japan’s
clean and tasty ground water, its four
distinct seasons help to deepen whisky
flavors during years of aging.
Y
Scotland’s many distilleries make
blending whisky flavors easy. Suntory had
to develop its own array of flavors using
various temperatures and combinations of
yeasts for fermentation, as well as more
complex methods of distilling whisky.
After fermentation, the beige liquid gets
heated and distilled in “pot stills,” huge
metallic containers of varying shapes that
can quicken or delay the distilling process,
yielding nuances of flavors.
The result is a colorless liquid that
smells almost like antiseptic that is stored
in barrels, or casks, in a cavernous
warehouse designed for aging whiskies.
No nails are used in the casks, whose strips
of old wood are bound by tightened metal
rings. Aging gives whisky its color and
personality — what whisky lovers say
distinguishes it from wine or beer.
The casks, used over and over again,
include old wine and bourbon barrels.
Some are from Europe and the U.S. and
others are made of Japanese oak.
Suntory’s three distilleries in Japan house
a million casks.
It’s a mystery exactly how whisky ages,
says Shinji Fukuyo, Suntory’s chief
blender.
Flavors of each cask are mixed — just
right, like a “jigsaw puzzle,” he says — to
create, and re-create, various kinds of
whisky and develop new ones.
A serious-looking, slight man with
graying hair, Fukuyo says he avoids garlic
or greasy fish, especially for breakfast, to
keep his taste buds pure for his job.
“What’s important for whisky is that its
deliciousness must deepen with aging,
sitting in the casks for a long time,” said
Fukuyo, 55, demonstrating how he
examines the whisky in a glass, swirlling
the crystalline amber spirit against the
light.
He gently rolls a sip on his tongue, then
spits it out: Fukuyo does 100 such tastings
a day, sometimes more than 200. He
switches positions of the glasses on the
table to remember what he just tasted.
There is no time for note-taking.
“It’s a clean and beautiful taste. It’s hard
to explain in words,” he said of Japanese
whisky.
Japanese whisky aged in a white oak
cask has a hint of citrus or green apple.
One aged in a sherry cask is fragrant, rich,
and sweet, evocative of dried fruit. Whisky
aged in Japanese oak and smoky whisky
have pungent, herbal flavors.
The growing popularity of Japan’s
cuisine has helped win a following for its
whisky, which was designed to be
consumed with food, experts say.
Nikka Whisky, a unit of Asahi
Breweries, froze its overseas expansion in
2014, finding it impossible to keep up with
demand, says Emiko Kaji, who manages
Nikka’s international business.
Nikka Whisky From the Barrel,
packaged in a sleek bottle, is doing
especially well in Europe, she says.
Sukhinder Singh, owner of London-
based retailer The Whisky Exchange, says
he has had to ration his supplies of
Japanese
whisky
to
hotels
and
restaurants. He never seems to have
enough.
At first, Japanese victories in blindfold
whisky contests baffled connoisseurs. By
now the Japanese blends have won over
even the skeptics, he said.
When whisky expert Jim Murray voted
the Yamazaki Sherry Cask the Best
Whisky in the World for his 2015 Whisky
Bible, its price shot up overnight. Prices of
other Japanese whiskies have also been
rising.
“Everyone went: We want to buy
Japanese,” Singh said in a phone
interview. “The problem we have at the
moment is not selling it. It’s getting it.
“We can sell every bottle we can get,” he
said.
Zoetrope, a tiny bar in a dingy Tokyo
backstreet building, is famed among lovers
of Japanese whisky.
“Japanese whisky has an unpredicta-
bility that makes it fun, and the highly
skillful Japanese blenders have created a
subtle taste with an impeccable balance,”
said Atsushi Horigami, Zoetrope’s owner
and bartender, standing before counters
and shelves crammed with colorful bottles.
Thousands of miles away at Festa, a bar
in San Francisco, banker Crystal
Roseberry was trying Suntory’s Yamazaki
12, at $40 a drink, for the first time.
“Soft, silky, not jarring, elegant,
friendly. And it still has a structure of a
good whisky, which I think is very
important,” she said in an interview over
an online call. “This whisky is intriguing.”
Bar owner Masae Matsumoto was glad
to have stocked up on Yamazaki.
“It’s gotten impossible to get over the
last six months,” she said. “Japanese
whisky tastes so good.”
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