Earlier this month Jim Murray, not the late great sportswriter but the British writer who for the past 12 years has published an influential annual guide to the world's whiskies called Jim Murray's Whisky Bible, said a Japanese whisky was the world's best. This caused my email box to fill up with queries, most of which could be boiled down to two questions: "Did you know about this?" and "Is it really that good?"
The answer to the first question is yes, I received a news release announcing Murray's findings just like everybody else. And yes, Japanese whisky is, as they say, a "thing" and has been since before Bill Murray famously purred, "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time" in 2003's Lost in Translation. (Suntory has been around as a distillery since 1899 and it has been making a Scotch-like malt whisky since 1923. In April, it became the world's third largest spirits maker when it acquired Beam Inc.)
(Before we go any further let's take judicial notice that some people -- and some governments -- insist that Scotch whisky must be a product of Scotland. There are some people who similarly think that since "whisky" denotes Scotch whisky, any Japanese product should properly be called "whiskey." I am aware of this debate, but I know what Scotch tastes like. And I know what it says on the bottle.)
As to the second question, the best answer is I don't know. By which I mean, I haven't tasted Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 for a couple of reasons: There were only 18,000 bottles of it made, which means that they're harder to get hold of than Pappy Van Winkle's secret Hotmail address. Before Murray's verdict was announced, it was selling for about $160 in the few U.S. shops that carried it. (Now they're fetching auction prices of more than $425.) If someone wants to set up a Kickstarter to buy me a bottle I won't discourage it, but as much as you deserve it, dear readers, I do not think an expense form for that item would be well received.
(I know a writer who, while covering the first Persian Gulf War, put a Land Rover on the company credit card. When he got back stateside, this occasioned a fist fight with the executive editor/co-owner of the publication. Someday I may tell this story in more detail, but not today, because the whiskey involved was Irish and not Japanese.)
I have had Japanese whisky and I'm agnostic about it. Some is very good, but the very good stuff I've had is pretty expensive. Yamazaki 18-year-old Single Malt can be had for about $180 a bottle locally (which is a good deal, considering I've seen it in the $220 range in New York and California). The 12-year-old Yamazaki is a more reasonable $65 or so -- a little more than Macallan's 12-year-old edition (and a little less than Macallan's excellent Cask Strength, which is getting really hard to find).
On the other hand, I don't know of a good cheap single malt Scotch, unless you consider a $32 bottle of Glenmorangie "cheap." (You can find some good blends in the $20 price range, but that's not the same animal.) Which is one of the reasons I drink more bourbon than Scotch -- you can get two bottles of Knob Creek and a deli sandwich for the price of a bottle of the Yamazaki 12.
That said, the Yamazaki 12 is a whisky that most people who drink will probably like. It's not a terribly scratchy or peaty Scotch but a smooth, rounded, almost bell-like sip that seems more like a high-end blend (think Chivas Regal but fuller, with a punch bowl of fruity flavors in the finish) than an idiosyncratic single malt. I'd recommend you take it neat -- the introduction of a splash of water is more likely to drown the whisky than open it up. While I'm no Scotch snob, I think it's comparable to Glenfiddich, though slightly more interesting because of the novelty of its provenance.
Yamazaki 12 is made from 100 percent malted barley, milled and mashed before being fermented with water sourced from the foothills of Mount Tenno between Kyoto and Osaka. (According to the marketing myth, this water was preferred by legendary tea master Sen No Rikyu.) After the barley has been fermented, it is distilled through Suntory's copper-pot stills before the whisky is matured in casks made of three different types of oak: American, Spanish and Japanese. (The American oak comes from charred casks in which bourbon has been aged.) After aging for 12 years in Japan's unique environment -- constant changes in temperature and humidity encourage wood and whisky to interact -- the whisky is brought to proof before being bottled.
That's what Suntory says, at least.
As for Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 being the best whisky in the world, that's obviously a problematic claim. Jim Murray described it as "near indescribable genius" and gave it 97.5 points out of 100, which leaves a little headroom for an even more exquisite if yet untasted whisky. Having not tasted the whisky -- Murray describes it as "rich and fruity" with a nose of "exquisite boldness" and finish of "light, teasing spice," which makes sense if you extrapolate from the 12-year-old version -- I can't argue with Murray's opinion. (I wouldn't want to anyway; the guy knows Scotch better and drinks a lot more of it than I do.)
But it's also interesting to note that he seems as interested in shaking up the Scottish whisky industry, calling his results a "wake-up call" for the distillers. For the first time since he started the Whisky Bible, he didn't put a Scottish whisky in his top five. (Last year, he chose the 19-year-old single malt Glenmorangie Ealanta as the year's best whisky.)
It's not surprising that a Japanese whisky has taken top honors -- they've been around a long time and often take prizes at prestigious competitions, even in Scotland. The art of distilling is more of a science -- anyone can make a good spirit if they're willing to wash thoroughly and follow the recipe.
Besides, Suntory also owns the Scottish distilleries that produce the single malts Ardmore and Laphroaig. So maybe those are technically Japanese whiskeys as well.
...
It has been noted elsewhere in the newspaper -- Linda Haymes had it in her Paper Trails column last Sunday -- but let's note that Murray also recognized Arkansas' own Rock Town Distillery in this year's Whisky Bible.
He awarded the distillery's Arkansas Single Barrel Reserve Bourbon Whiskey 96.5 points, making it the top-rated U.S. micro-distillery whiskey, and wrote that it was "Unquestionably one of the great micro distillery bourbons of all time; a bottling which will put Arkansas and Rock Town in particular on the world whisky map."
Congratulations. It's one of our favorite whiskeys, too.
Email:
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
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Style on 11/23/2014