The future of Japanese whisky
Hey guys! How’s it going? It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been on a long vacation, but now I’m back and I’m proposing an interesting topic to you: The Future of Japanese whisky.
Now, if you are a whisky person and like to be informed an all things about the whisky world, then you probably know that there has been and still is a “struggle” in the Japanese whisky market, as the age statement Japanese whiskies are slowly disappearing. Wether you are or are not up to date with this situation, keep reading, I think this is an interesting topic.
Why is Japanese whisky in trouble ?
Well, this is not a tough question to answer. The Japanese age statement whisky is disappearing because there is simply not enough of it to go around.
This is caused partly by some management decision taken many years ago, a decision that maybe cannot be blamed, and the decision is of course related to the amount of whisky to produce for ageing and have the lovely finished products we so greatly enjoy, still, today, which is the Japanese aged malt whisky.
Why am I saying that this decision cannot really be blamed you ask? Well, in my opinion, it was very hard to anticipate, more than a decade ago, the success rate that the aged Japanese whisky would have. I’m sure many of you remember the iconic movie called Lost in Translation-2003, starring Holywood superstar Bill Murray, in that movie, along Bill Murray, Suntory’s Hibiki 17 year old was in the spotlight. The most famous line in the movie being “For relaxing times, make it Suntory time”, the line being delivered by Bill Murray front and center holding the lovely Hibiki 17yo bottle and sipping on a dram. The the movie played a part and of course the high praising reviews across the world, Japanese tourism and sophisticated consumers, all of this contributed to the rise of Japanese whisky. The consumption rate rose exponentially and was not/could not be anticipated, this is why we are now basically seeing a drought in age statement Japanese whisky.
The struggle
When I say struggle, I am referring to the disappointed Japanese whisky fans and whisky fans in general, which are now faced with the impossibility of getting their hands on this great whisky, myself included. Some of us have been able to enjoy Japanese whisky for some time, others are just getting into it, and for the latter group things are even more disappointing. Prices have gone up considerably, at a point where very few people can actually afford to buy a bottle of Hibiki 17yo for instance (if you can find it), don’t get me started on the older expressions. I, for one, cannot get my hands on the aged Hibiki expressions, the only two aged Suntory expressions I could get my hands on were the 12yo Yamazaki and the 12yo Hakushu, but I am glad that I could at least get my hands on those as even these are seeing prices skyrocket. But this is not just Suntory’s problem, it’s a general problem for the Japanese whisky distilleries. I was lucky enough to taste the 17yo Hibiki on my trip to Frankfurt Germany 🙂
Why are prices so high?
As with anything rare, the price is high.
Some say that because of the fact that these whiskies are getting rarer and rarer, because they have been discontinued, others say that the flippers and collectors are driving the prices up a lot. I say it’s a mix of those reasons.
Now, of course, many of you would say that this is the basics of economics, supply and demand. If the supply is low and the demand is high, the prices go up, I totally agree.
But, you cannot ignore the fact that there are a lot of flippers around that just want to benefit from this situation and go around and empty the shelves of these whiskies and then wait for the price to go up and sell at a profit. In my opinion this is a deciding factor in the price hike we are still seeing, and in my opinion it will only get worse. Some will argue with me, some already have in some forums and social media groups, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people are doing this while trying to make a profit. All of this is just sad fore the average consumer who just wants to get a sip of that magic potion.
What’s next?
Well, looking at the current releases from Suntory, the Hibiki Blender’s Choice, which is the latest release, I’d say it’s not a good sign. We’re seeing yet another NAS released at a pretty high price point, 260 USD, available for pre-order. I’m saying that this is not a good sign because we may not be able to see an aged whisky from Suntory at the prices we used to, and this again makes me sad.
But, let’s try to be optimistic, let’s see what happens when the next batches of aged Japanese whisky come out, the word on the street is that something might happen for 2026, so we still have a lot of time to wait. Fingers crossed for a nice surprise 😉
Here’s hoping we can have a dram of our favorite aged Japanese whisky at the 2026 World Cup 🙂
Now it’s your turn, what do you think about this topic? Where is Japanese whisky headed ? What should we expect in the years to come ?
Sound off in the comments below. Kanpai!
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Andrei Muresan
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