WHAT IS THE BEST WHISKY IN THE WORLD?

Yes, it's Sunday, but I can't think of anything particularly spiritual to share.  So here are some topical items, to end with what is the best whisky in the world:

• While I wonder why nothing much seems to be happening, for some it is a pleasure to track criminal and civil cases against Donald Trump:
• 1. E. Jean Carroll Defamation and Federal Tort Claims Act Litigation
• 2. Summer Zervos Defamation Suit
• 3. Mary Trump Fraud Litigation
• 4. Panama Hotel Fraud and Tax Litigation
• 5. Doe v. The Trump Corporation Class Action
• 6. DC Civil Suit over Misuse of 2017 Inauguration Funds
• 7. Bennie Thompson Incitement Suit for Jan. 6 Capitol Attack
• 8. Eric Swalwell Incitement Suit for Jan. 6 Riots
• 9. Capitol Police Suit for Jan. 6 Riots
• 10. NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund Voting Rights Case for Post-Election Actions
• 11. New York Attorney General’s Civil and Criminal Investigations
• 12. Criminal Investigations into Trump’s Finances
• 13. DC AG Incitement Criminal Investigation
• 14. Fulton County, Georgia Criminal Election Influence Investigation 
• 
  Tokyo Summer Olympics:  WHO???
• Mutaz Essa Barshim (Qatar) and Gianmarco Tamberi (Italy) each got a gold medal for jumping 7'9."  There is a tie-breaking system, but they agreed to share first place.  The world record for the high jump was set in 1993 by Javier Sotomayor of Cuba at just over 8 feet.  Bet you did not know that.  I can't imagine anyone leaping 8 feet.
• 
  About Italy, the world's fastest man today is from that country.  Lamont Marcell Jacobs won the men's 100 meter dash, with American Fred Kerley coming in second.
• Germany's Alexander Zverev won the men's tennis gold medal.  His parents left the Soviet Union when the country collapsed.

• 
  At least you know something about the American women soccer team, which lost to Sweden 3-0, but sufficiently recovered to in a few hours meet Canada in a semi-final game.  While the U.S. women beat Canada in 35 previous meetings, Canada has a current nine-match winning streak and won bronze medals in the 2012 London Games and the 2018 Rio Olympics.  The USA is nevertheless heavily favored, and should meet its nemesis, Sweden, or Australia, in the finals.
• 
  Both American basketball teams are doing well enough, but have had tough matches against nobodies, with the men actually losing a game to France. 
• The swimming star of the Games was Emma McKeon of Australia, who won seven medals, four gold.  However, Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics got eight gold medals.

• 
  By the way, while China has 23 gold medals to the USA's 20, we have 59 total medals to China's 50.  That Russian committee has 44.  The odds of the USA winning the most medals are -1000.  What does that mean?  Go to the right column BETTING ODDS CALCULATOR and click on Go To.  You will see that the U.S. has a 91% chance of to get the most medals. Japan?  4%.

For all practical purposes, there are two types of whiskies, bourbon and scotch.  Irish versions are like scotch and rye is a bourbon.  To begin, this beverage is spelled WHISKEY in the U.S and Ireland, and WHISKY just about everywhere else.  The term whisky comes from the Gaelic "water of life."

The origin is Scotland, in the 1700's, although there is reference as far back as 1494, two years after Columbus discovered America.  As of today, there are 134 Scotch whisky distilleries in Scotland.  They are all brewed from barley and aged in oak for three years or more.  There are many variations, but single malt and blended are two that suffice.

All scotch comes from Scotland.  Those Japanese scotches are labeled whisky, and derived from Scotland, mostly by Masataka Taketsuru, who learned the art in Scotland, and returned to Japan in the early 1920's with a Scottish wife to help Shinjiro Torii establish Suntory, starting with a distillery in Yamazaki (said to be the spot for the best water in Japan, a reason why legendary teen master Sen no Rikyu built his tearoom there) just to the Kyoto side of Osaka.  Taketsuru moved to Hokkaido in 1934 to start his own company, which became Nikka, established at Yoichi.

In 2001 Nikka's 10-year old Yoichi single malt won the Best of Best Whisky Magazine award, breaking the hold that Scotland had since the beginning.  

• Theoretically, you can purchase a bottle of this brew from Blackwell's for $95.  Good luck.  
• Decanta sells a MINIATURE bottle for $295, and a full bottle for $1300.  
• Rare Whiskey Shop sells it for $549.02.
• Here is an excellent review.
• Why such a wide range?  Nikka discontinued most if its brands in 2017, and it's possible that a certain outlet could well have a sufficient number so as to sell at a lower price.

Japanese whiskies like Yamazaki, Hibiki and others have since then been accordingly selected, but the World Whiskies Award now has so many categories, that they don't mean much. However, The Glenallachi 10-year old Batch 4 seems like a good buy today.  Various vendors sell it for a little more than $80/bottle.

In 2015 Kavalan's Vinho Barrique was named the Best Single Malt Whisky.  Who?  Kavalan is from Taiwan.  The Lee family started way back in 1959 selling pesticides and mosquito repellent, and in 1979 expanded into root beer.   In 2006, son Tien-Tsai Lee, founder of what became a beverage conglomerate, took advantage of a change in Taiwanese law to brew alcohol.  No Taketsuru story, no hanging out in Scotland, or Japan.  He got together with a Taiwanese team of engineers, food technologist, Jim Swan (right, from Scotland) and Yuan Ian Chang (studied in the UK, standing nest to Swan) to design and operate the distillery.  The secret could well be Swan's STR American oak sherry cask treatment.

The other attraction is that it's an easier whisky to drink, especially for the uninitiated.  Plus, it does not hurt that Kavalan during past decade has won 220 awards.  They now have 18 different varieties.  Prices are not outrageous because it produces 9 million liters/year, making it one of the largest single malt whisky distilleries in the world.  It is comparable in size to Glenlivet.  

Let me end with a series of ads from Decanta:

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THIS IS INTERNATIONAL WHISKY DAY!

Any excuse to drink some whisky, but, honestly, today is International Whisky Day.  In the spirit of March Madness, Dekanta listed 64 of the best Japanese Whiskies, with the winner to be crowned on April 1.   Vote here.

Here are a couple whiskies you can buy from Dekanta:

Or, if you want something more celebratory:

Then again, here is a perfectly drinkable cheapie:

Suntory Toki Japanese Whisky

$ 29.99 

"Toki' means time in Japanese. And Suntory's Toki Whisky is a tribute to that. Its a blend of whiskies of varying ages from Suntory's three main distilleries - Hakushu, Yamazaki and Chita. The pairing of Hakushu 
American white oak cask malt whisky with Chita heavy-type grain whisky, together with select Yamazaki malts to lend additional depth and complexity, gives Toki a silky taste and vivid character.

86 proof. 

TASTING NOTES:
Color: clear gold 
Nose: basil, green apple, honey 
Palate: grapefruit, green grapes, peppermint, thyme. 
Finish: subtly sweet and spicy finish with a hint of vanilla oak, white pepper and ginger

Except in Hawaii Marukai sells it for $35 or so the last time I checked.  Toki means time in Japanese, and ignore the pepper and ginger stuff.  It is easily drinkable and has no distinguishing taste.  That $29.99 price is from Mash & Grape.  Whiskey Advocate lists the best Japanese whiskies under $80:

They price Toki at $40.  That is not the standard Hibiki you might have had two years ago.  It's now named Japanese Harmony, and sells for $65.

The 2019 Edition of Hibiki 17 is available for pre-order on Japanese whisky retailer Dekanta for a whopping $600, a $450 jump over the whisky’s official $150 retail price.

If you have been wondering why this beverage is sometimes spelled whisky and other times whiskey:

• Ireland and USA:  whiskey
• Scotland, Canada and Japan:  whisky

Whisk(e)y covers a lot of types of grain-alcohol:

• Scotch:  barley
• Bourbon:  corn or maize
• Rye:  rye

For whisk(e)ys, there is straight, sometimes called malt in scotches, or blended, which combines brews from different distilleries.  The plural?  Whiskies and whiskeys.  

Note that the Japanese cannot call their whisky Scotch, so they don't.  But this product from the Orient is essentially the same, and began to get better from 2008 when a bottle of 20-year old Yoichi malt from Nikka was crowned the best whisky in the world. 

What happened was that:

• 
  In 1918 Masataka Taketsuru, the heir to a noted sake brewing family, traveled from Japan to the University of Glasgow to study chemistry.  He apprenticed at a liquor company there owned by Settsu Shuzo.  Ah, but love can cause problems.  Masataka promised to marry Shettsu's daughter for this opportunity, but fell in love with Rita, a Scottish girl.  All three families were upset, but Masa and Rita went back to Japan where Masa impressed Shinjiro Torii of Torii Shoten to improve his mediocre whisky.
• 
  In 1929 the two of them produced White Label at Shinjiro's Yamazaki distillery located just outside of Kyoto.  But this product was too smoky for the Japanese, and after a decade dissolved their partnership.

• 
  Masa and Rita moved to Hokkaido where Masa founded Nikka at Yoichi, and produced his first product in 1940.  Close by this Yoichi complex is Otaru to the right.
• Sixty eight years later Yoichi from Nikka beat the Scots. 
• Oh, don't feel sorry for Shinjiro Torii, for his company became Suntory.
• Below is that famous Japanese whisky photo from the movie Lost in Translation with Bill Murray.  My favorite whisky scene from any film.  Worth a look.  Go, click on it.   Suntory Hibiki.

According to some publications, while scotch in Scotland is drunk with a bit of water and at room temperature, and never with ice, Japanese bars chose to steer their product to one part whisky and three parts soda, to mimic beer.  Ice came later, even in a spherical shape.  Actually, my experience in Japan is that soda is rarely used, and something called mizuwari is the preferred request, which is two parts water and one part liquor (originally shochu, but now mostly applies to whisky).  The term oyuwari, which replaces cold water with hot water, is also used, but only for shochu.  

One more educational item:  proof.  This was a complicated matter in the past because of taxing.  In the UK, citing proof allowed you to pay less, for a 100 proof spirit was defined to be 57 percent alcohol by volume (ABV).  Then in 1848 the U.S. just arbitrarily said proof was double the ABV.  Thus if you have, say, 40% alcohol in the bottle, the proof was 80.  Thankfully, the British around 1980 became americanized.

Here is the alcoholic content of common beverages:

As pictured, those volumes represent the equivalent amount of alcohol.

International Whisk(e)y Day honors Michael Jackson.  Not that American singer, but a British whisky writer who died of Parkinson's Disease.  We thus celebrate this beverage on his birthday, today, and think about somehow also supporting research on this disease.  That's him to the left.

Actually, you can imbibe on whisk(e)y two more times this year.  On the third Saturday of May there is World Whisky Day (note no "e" because this day was invented in Scotland) and National Bourbon Day on June 14.  The latter is more a North American tradition, for Canadian whiskies are like bourbon because they use a combination of grains.  There is no consensus, but the Scots brought their technology to Kentucky in the late 1700's and used corn mash to create moonshine.  The water of life, scotch, was first brewed 500 years ago in Scotland.

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ALL ABOUT MACALLAN...AND JAPANESE WHISKIES

I've been collecting whiskeys for more than a third of a century.  Began when I took trips throughout the World from the 1980's.  I must still have a dozen bottles still in the original cardboard box, mostly from Japan.  Below are some of them.  One is in a wooden box, Royal Lochnager.  A 36-year old bottle of this scotch is today sold for $4774.

Another is Korean Bulhui folk liquor.  Not sure what it is.  It could well cost only $10, but don't know.

Another is almost as mysterious.  Rokubee in a ceramic bootle made by Nikka , which costs $430/bottle.

Something more traditional, Royal Salute 21-years old blended whiskey, produced by Chivas, and costs $235.

I'd swear I bought this Nikka Yoichi 20-year old for around $100, if not less.  Cost today?  $3765!!

Some think that it was the 15-year old that broke the ice in 2001.  Not true, but it did garner 2009 and 2020 Gold Medals.  Costs more than $1000.  But it was the 10-year old  Nikka Single Cask Yoichi that broke the ice in 2001.  #2 that year was Suntory's Hibiki 21-year old.  The 10-year old Yoichi which once sold for way less than $100, now goes for $1300/bottle.

This all began when Masataka Taketsuru in 1918, went  to Scotland to study chemistry at Glasgow University.  He then trained as a blender in Campbelltown and Speyside, got married to a Scottish girl, went home, and with Suntory's founder Shinjiro Torii, exactly a century ago, formed Yamazaki distillery.  He died, at age 85 in 1979, and did not live long enough to experience his tectonic impact of the field.  Read his story of how love changed the scotch landscape.

Bringing you up to date, here are the World Whiskies Awards for 2023.  They have so many kinds of awards these days that these values are diluted. Ichiro's Malt and Grain Japanese Blended Whisky, Taketsuru Pure Malt and Niigata Kameda New Pot Peated won awards.

Be careful about buying the current Hibiki in the same-looking bottle as the original:

Hibiki is the noble blend of malt and grain whiskies from Suntory’s distilleries. These are delicately blended to unfold a full orchestra of flavours and aromas. The core range includes Hibiki Japanese Harmony, Hibiki 12 Years Old, Hibiki 17 Years Old, Hibiki 21 Years Old, and Hibiki 30 Years Old.

Hibiki 12-year old, that not too long ago sold for $75 or so, is now $900.  Hibiki Harmony is $100.

Must show these Japanese whisky bottles, for as much as I'm saving some long-ago purchased legends, here are what I'm drinking today.

Note that I'm  running out of that expensive Hibiki on the left, the Suntory Yamazaki is upwards of $200 if you can find it, that 12-year old Suntory Hakusho has been many times called the best single malt ever made, and has won a whole range of awards, and an older brother of the Ichiro just was named the #1 blended whisky.

We have three more bottles, opened, but kept in original wooden cases, only drunk for special occasions.

The Kurayoshi 27-year old is $1400, Kurayoshi 25-year old $1000 and Tottori 23-year old $750.  You'll see Kurayoshi, Tottori and Matsui on labels because Matsui Distillery is located  in Kurayoshi, a city found in Tottori Prefecture.

One more thing, note the spelling.  Whisky is used in Scotland, Canada and Japan.  Whiskey in the USA and Ireland.

But this posting is supposed to mostly be about Macallan.

• Distillery is in Craigellachi, Moray, Scotland.
• Original distellery in Speyside in 1824.
• Highland Distillers, now Adrington, took over the company in 1996.
• It did not focus on single malts until the early 1980s.

• 
  Opened up the luxury whisky market.
• Is the second or third highest selling single malt scotch, next to Glenfiddich at #1 and Glenlivet.
• Can be found as 10, 12, 25, 30 and 40 year-olds.
• 1824 Collection and Quest Collection sold in duty free shops.

• 
  They also offer rare and special releases.
• In 2010 a 65-year old in crystal was sold at an auction for $460,000, and donated to charity.
• In 2018, a 60-year old was sold for $1.38 million.

• 
  In 2019, another 60-year old sold for $1.9 million.
• A bottle of Isabella's Islay, however,is the most expensive whisky with a price of $6 billion.  Part of this is because the decanter contains 8,500 diamonds, 300 rubies and white gold.

Well, earlier this week I brought down a bottle of Macallan Quest, and our 15 Craigside table drunk most of it.  Thought I'd check how much this cost, and found prices from $300 to $500.  This is what led to this subject today.

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