Category - Japanese Whisky

There’s a reason Japanese whisky is spelled, like Scotch, without the “e.” It was inspired by, and still takes after, Scotch whisky. A burgeoning, and rapidly excelling, market, Japanese whisky really began with one guy—Masataka Taketsuru, a Japanese national who went to Scotland to study organic chemistry in 1918, and instead fell in love with Scotch production.

Which, to be fair, is a different kind of chemistry, a science he brought home with him to found Yamazaki and Yoichi distilleries (Japan’s first and second whisky distilleries, respectively). Since then—and in a comparatively short time in the world of whiskey—Japanese whisky has evolved to a place of major esteem; in 2014, whiskey critic Jim Murray named Yamazaki’s 2013 Single Malt Sherry Cask “the best whisky in the world.”