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I certainly think the Japanese single malts are already giving them a run for their money. Hard to say, "already" when they've been making good product for a ce

by 3am 12y ago

I certainly think the Japanese single malts are already giving them a run for their money. Hard to say, "already" when they've been making good product for a century or so... but this year was a pretty good reminder: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/05/japan-beats-scotland-to-win-worlds-best-whiskey-title/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/05... Although, I don't know about moderating prices. Finding a bottle of the Yamazaki has not been easy (particularly at a reasonable price). EDIT: the Diageo special release pricing has gotten almost insulting. EDIT: yup, tpacek, couldn't agree more. The Robert Parker of Whisky, to be taken with a grain of salt... but I'd say it's at least correlated with quality and an indicator of where the market is headed.

tptacek 12y ago
If you buy into the whole Jim Murray ranking thing. The fact is, everything at the top of his list is amazing (and Japan has consistently produced top-quality single malt), but the distribution of scores is pretty arbitrary. The problem, of course, is that the rest of the market tends to treat Murray's ratings as objective fact, so, for instance, when he declared Thomas Handy the best whiskey in the world a few years back, bottles became impossible to find. So maybe it's a blessing that Scotland has been demoted. :)