By Richard Thomas It’s the first week of October, and whisk(e)y fans are fast approaching the middle of the ultra-hot Autumn Release Season. Usually centered on a series of much-anticipated, hard-to-get American annual limited releases, this year Scotland and Japan have some noteworthy whiskies either out now or coming out shortly to liven up the mix. These are the new ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B- How someone in Japan could put good whisky in the same kind of utilitarian packaging one might use for a big bottle of beer is beyond me, but don’t let that throw you. Ohishi whiskies might not measure up to the finest The Yamazaki has to offer, but it’s pretty good stuff and ought not ...

How The Rise Of American And World Malts Have Changed The Fundamentals By Richard Thomas Until the advent of the World Whisk(e)y Boom, malt whisky has been a pretty stable category. The overwhelming majority of malts were made either in Scotland or in countries pursuing their own variants of the Scottish model (most notably Japan), a fact best signified by ...

By Emma Briones Rating: B+ A few weeks ago, Suntory took a step forward: The Chita Single Grain officially arrived in Europe. Launched in 2015, it was at first only available in Japan, and then later launched worldwide for Travel Retail. Now you can find this single grain in most specialist shops in Europe and, maybe, get one in the ...

By Richard Thomas The two big stumbling blocks for anyone trying to get into Japanese whisky are the price tag and availability. Japanese whisky is as expensive or more expensive than comparable Scotch whiskies, and many key expressions are a damn sight harder to find. It’s not hard to see why. Japanese whisky has become wildly popular around the world ...