For the next few weeks the review site is off to Japan! No, not literally, I am yet to actually leave an airport in Japan (woe to the transit passenger… and our last pandemic for interrupting the one trip during which I was planning to see something more than a transit lounge). No, the next few weeks will be all Japanese whisky… so not quite an entire June of Japanese whisky, but a good half June!

Two decades ago, heck even one decade ago, it was easy to name the major Japanese single malt producers and find their whiskies. These days it’s a crowded field between established giants, venerable small operations, reborn distilleries, and two waves of new craft distilleries, yet Japanese whisky has become expensive and/or challenging to reliably find.

It is a lot to keep track of, so naturally I turn to the experts: Whiskey Richard and Stefan Van Eycken. Whiskey Richard runs Nomunication, a fantastic whisky blog and all-around resource for distilleries, events, and data on the whisky industry in Japan. I also love to have a good whisky reference book on hand, and Van Eycken’s Whisky Rising, now with an expanded and updated second edition, provides a wonderful collection of distillery profiles, histories, and nerdy details from across the Japanese whisky industry. It is one of those great whisky books that is equal parts informative and readable.

I would love to be able to tell you that the insatiable demand for Japanese whisky has tapered off over the last few years, but retail and secondary prices remain eye watering. Even with some softening of demand, and more supply (and a return to age statements from distilleries like Yoichi), Japanese whisky is not a place one searches for value. The whisky is good, but the prices, even for a basic 12 Year, are still too hot by my reckoning.

While price is not normally part of my scoring, or something I track, at times it is impossible to avoid the question of cost. This is particularly true for drams whose price is shockingly high, or low. I expect that the price of many Japanese whiskies, especially single casks, has dragged on my scoring over the years. The whisky is good, but the price/quality ratio is not great.

Chichibu, for example, is my most reviewed Japanese distillery, and one of the highest rated on this site. Yet, with single casks routinely selling for $400-800, it would be foolish to deny that that fact has not played some role in my subconscious reckoning of the whisky. Few other distilleries command that price for 7-9 year old whiskies.

Thankfully not every distillery is subject to such extreme valuations, or overly enthusiastic collectors, but as the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats, and Japanese whisky remains an expensive category to explore… even if it has relaxed a bit.

You can find prior reviews of Japanese whisky on this site through the link: Japan!

Artwork this week is my own; I opted to punish visitors with my own amateur digital sketch rather than commission a piece from the wife or generate an AI image.

Edit 6.24: I have updated the graphic for this page; after a week of sketching I decided to redo my Japan week art. I won’t say it’s better, but I definitely spent a lot more time on it. Old art still memorialized below. Let’s see how long I can keep this up!