
Japan Is Running Out of Whisky - danso
https://kotaku.com/japan-is-running-out-of-whisky-1826032552
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ghostbrainalpha
I was expecting an article about climate change...

Turns out Japan is running out of Whisky because it is popular and people
drank it all.

Whisky takes time to mature, so there is a long lag time before production can
ramp up to meet the new demand.

~~~
WorldMaker
Whisky is an interesting business. The whiskey shortage is actually impacting
everyone (entire shelves have "disappeared" and the rare bottles are even more
rare today than a decade ago), but Japan has been ahead of that demand curve
and/or a major factor in its current global popularity/shortage.

Japan imports a lot of whisky, loves Bourbon, and Japanese companies have made
big plays in the Kentucky Bourbon space. (Kirin rebuilt the Four Roses
distillery a while back, and Suntory merged with Beam Brands to form Beam
Suntory.)

Bourbon is "lucky" here in that the average lag time is ~3-5 years (3 years of
aging to qualify for a "Kentucky Straight Bourbon" label, 5 years being most
drinkers' preference). The Scotch distilleries and their ~10-15 year lag time
to meet demand is a bigger problem in the global whisky shortage. One of the
biggest ways the Scotch distillers have been coping is removing Age Statements
from their labels, which runs the risk of ruining the reputations of some of
their brands if they are chancing things with immature/too young product and
avoiding lying to drinkers about it by simply not admitting the Age of the
product.

(I live in Louisville, KY and several of my neighbors are distilleries, so I
find this all fascinating local interest.)

~~~
ksec
The problem is even after some of them / range / SKUs have removed the age
label. They were still flying off the shelves because people recognised there
is going to be less of it.

My friend does lots of Macallan whisky trading.

~~~
WorldMaker
Certainly. It's a risk/reward judgment call by the distillery. They risk their
brand getting labeled a poor or bottom-shelf brand, though, if they aren't
careful and they misjudge demand.

That's not a hypothetical, similar whisky culture cycles in history have shown
once good/strong/trusted brands in the heat of a shortage/high-demand period
make short term gains and long term folly.

Four Roses is a fun immediate example I already mentioned. Before Kirin bought
Four Roses it was a struggling "bottom shelf" bourbon that had made some poor
choices (by former Canadian alcohol conglomerate Seagram) in the whisky boom
of the 50s/60s and subsequent whisky bust in the 70s/80s that busted many
brands. [1] Kirin spent a lot of marketing money bringing Four Roses back up
the shelves.

The obvious counterpoints are products like Pappy van Winkle that are keeping
the age statements, keeping to those age commitments, and riding the shortage
to seem more exclusive/exotic.

[1] One article mentioning it: [http://fortune.com/2014/02/06/the-billion-
dollar-bourbon-boo...](http://fortune.com/2014/02/06/the-billion-dollar-
bourbon-boom/)

------
Isamu
Luckily, Shochu is still plentiful.

