Single malts in Japan

In Shibuya, the height of Tokyo trendiness, there is a patch of expensive property that is essentially Scotland. . .

The Helmsdale is one of the nurseries of a revolution in the way the nation drinks. Slow maturing and individualistic, malt whisky is increasingly being seen as the bottled antidote to the pressurised conformity of Japanese life.

At the Helmsdale there are ranks containing 600 different malts and 30 blends, their plain, almost scientific labels denoting serious bottles. Drinkers scan the house list with the slow nods and intakes of breath the Japanese reserve for the semi-sacred. . .

Elsewhere in Asia they see little point in drinking a whisky that nobody has heard of. Japan is different. The flowering of malt is only happening because the roots of Scotch appreciation go back so far.

The seed was sewn in Elgin in 1919, when a handsome foreigner stepped off the train from Glasgow. He promptly received a traditional Scottish welcome: he was refused entry at the town’s three hotels and granted a specially inflated rate for rented rooms in the High Street.

Masataka Taketsuru, 25, was not easily put off. He came determined to learn the secrets of Scotch whisky. Straddling a vast culture gap, he spent two years with the stillmen and mashmen of Longmorn Distillery on Speyside, had a stint at Hazelburn Distillery in Campbeltown and completed courses in chemistry at Glasgow University and Royal Technical College. In 1921 he returned to Japan with his Kirkintilloch bride.

Posted by David on January 3, 2004 6:49 PM