The Osaka SourĪ personal favorite of mine is the Osaka sour, a distinctly Japanese adaptation of the traditional whiskey sour cocktail, which gained much popularity in the jazz age of the 1920s.Īs its name suggests, the drink’s appeal is its sour taste, but in the case of Japanese whiskey (especially brands like Suntory), this has a whole different taste palette. Japanese whiskey is no different, and the unique flavor palette means you can go in a much more unconventional direction than you would with other styles of whiskey, such as Scotch and Irish. Ways To Drink Japanese WhiskeyĪs with all liquors, there are countless ways to consume them, depending on personal taste, preference, and the situation you are in. What sets Japanese whiskey apart from western styles is the wide use of malted barley and locally sourced water, which helps to give the whiskey its distinct taste.ĭespite being initially an attempt to replicate scotch whiskey from the Highlands, Japanese whiskey (particularly brands like Suntory) resemble the body and flavor of traditional Irish Whiskey (such as Jameson’s), with a sweeter, unique taste created through the inclusion of apples, vanilla, and various indigenously sourced spices. Nowadays, Japanese whiskey is considered some of the best in the world, and it consistently wins awards both domestically and abroad. This changed in 2003, when Nikka’s 10 year Yoichi single malt whiskey won the “best of the best” prize in the awards for Whisky Magazine.įrom 2004, Japanese brands began being circulated on the American market, where they gradually garnered fan bases, growing in popularity with the widening cocktail culture of the late 2000s into the 2010s. Prior to the year 2000, the market for Japanese whiskey was almost entirely domestic. Taketsuru had been a distiller in Scotland, where he had learned at the hands of the masters, and when Torii hired him as his distilling executive, it became a recipe for success.Īfter working at Kotobukiya (later Suntory), and helping Torii establish the Yamazaki Distillery, Taketsuru went on to form his own whiskey distillery called Dainippon Kaju, which eventually became Nikka in more recent history. Japan’s whiskey history can be traced back to two key figures: Shinjiro Torii and Masataka Taketsuru.Ī pharmaceutical wholesaler, and founder of what would later become Suntory whiskey, Torii started importing western liquor, and released a unique brand or port based on Portuguese wine.Įventually though, through dissatisfaction with his company’s success, he decided to branch out, moving into whiskey distilling with the explicit goal of creating a domestic whiskey for the Japanese market. But what exactly sets Japanese whiskey apart from its western contemporaries, and how did it come about? History
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