Barrel Strength

The world grows grimmer by the day. First the cherished Scottish history is relegated to the trash heap. And if that isn’t painful enough, the beloved scotch itself has been upstaged by the Japanese.

The Nikka distillery in Japan has taken an interesting turn with single cask malt whiskey called Yoichi. Their website describes it as follows.

“It is purely bottled from one barrel without mixing whiskies from other barrels or water…. Each barrel has its own flavor because of the difference in material and condition, kinds of trees for barrels, the sizes and times the barrels are used, how to barn and so on.”

It certainly brings a variety to a single malt brand instead of drinking the same-old . The Japanese efforts in whisky making haven’t gone unrewarded, as earlier this year the Yoichi 20-years old became “the first variety produced outside Scotland to win the coveted single malt award in an international competition run by Whisky Magazine, the main industry publication… The decision to give the top prize to Yoichi followed a blind tasting of more than 200 of the world’s finest varieties by a panel of 16 of the world’s leading whisky experts.”

Perhaps it is a case of minding the dreaded EU legislated carbon emissions, as article goes on to state that the “Traditional distilling apparatus such as coal-fired pot stills, used widely in Japan but rarely seen in Scotland, was also praised for producing a superior dram.”