THE AMAZING STORY OF JAPANESE SINGLE MALT WHISKY

I am always fascinated and often inspired by unique situations and stories...

You need to make beer before you make whisky (sort of!) and it makes sense that Japanese make whisky based on their long tradition of beer making and even going back more in time with the Sake production (sort of flat beer) which pre-dates by far the beer making. 

Japanese Single Malt whisky is today considered a classic for whisky connoisseurs.

It is an irony that one of the most prized Japanese Single Malt Whisky went out of business because it was ahead of its time and failed just shy of a few years just before the Japanese whisky craze (see, adoption and diffusion concepts).

Another interesting bit is the 'insane' appeal which followed once the distillery stopped producing (see, prestige and scarcity concepts).

"Karuizawa is one of the legendary whisky distilleries in Japan. It was founded in 1955 and situated on a beautiful vineyard in Asama of Karuizawa where is also a famous summer palace to Japanese. 

Karuizawa is the smallest distillery in Japanese but its ambition is big. Karuizawa adopted the top standard in making of whisky. It used the famous barley Golden Promise, distilled in small batch and aged their spirit in finest Spanish sherry casks that made Karuizawa malt perfection in quality.

Although all these uncompromising principles made Karuizawa malt the masterpiece, it was irony that its persistence was unsustainable commercially at that time as the market was not ready to accept such a premium Japanese malt. Karuizawa distillery was stopped production in 2000 and completely closed in 2011.

Karuizawa’s old stocks are now the most precious and rarest Japanese malt ever existing in the market. It is foreseeable that Karuizawa malt, such a great, rare and classic but diminishing whisky will definitely becoming the treasures exclusively for the rich very soon .Why don’t you collect some when it is still available and affordable? 

Can’t find any at your local shops and even the big on-line shops? Yes, you can’t. Karuizawa malt is indeed too rare and too popular to meet the demand from the connoisseurs from all over the world. Only the very lucky people may grab one or two bottles from the limited choices of collection."  The Rare Malt (www.theraremalt.com)

                                                  Karuizawa Whisky

Sources: The Rare Malt