Premium Japanese whiskey is having a moment. With highballs in vogue and overseas plaudits pushing up demand for Japanese whiskey, distilleries are struggling to source sufficient amounts of unblended whiskey to meet demand.
Until stocks recover, manufacturers have been shifting attention to premium whiskeys hoping to prevent consumers from losing interest in domestic brands.
On Jan. 30, Suntory Spirits Ltd. unveiled a 55-year-old Yamazaki single-malt whiskey costing 3 million yen excluding tax for a 700-milliliter bottle.
The company's highest-priced whiskey, which was distilled at the Yamazaki distillery in Osaka Prefecture before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, has a deep amber color and a rich aftertaste. Only 100 bottles of the whiskey are available to buy via an online lottery.
The Nikka Whisky Distilling Co., a unit of Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd., will stop selling its signature Taketsuru whiskey at the end of March because it lacks sufficient stocks of unblended whiskey, which takes a number of years to age.
The domestic market peaked in 1983, with about 380,000 kiloliters of the liquor shipped. Whiskey production had fallen to about 74,000 kiloliters by 2008, pushed down by rising sales of other alcohol products such as shochu distilled spirits and canned cocktails.
However, since the latter half of the 2000s, there has been a surge in popularity for highballs -- whiskey and soda -- while appreciation for Japanese whiskey has grown in Europe and the United States, bringing about a shortage of unblended domestic whiskey.
Suntory has invested about 24 billion yen since 2017 to boost its production capacity. However, because of the amount of time it takes to age whiskey, it will take more than 10 years to replenish supplies.
"We want to convey the appeal of whiskey to arouse public interest both at home and abroad," said Kengo Torii, manager of Suntory Spirits' whiskey planning division.
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