Customer service(whisky)

[VNA]

Do you drink it neat ? or with what ?

Mostly neat.  I'll add water, a tiny drop at a time, if I'm trying something new, helps you pick out the flavours.

Beware that if you cool whisky you much reduce the flavour.  So ice can kill some drams dead, but some I do find can work with a drop of ice.

So yeah drink it as you please, but I mostly drink it neat even the cask stuff.

Has anyone ever tried Suntory japanese whisky.

Yes, I've had a few nips, it's good stuff.

The Japanese love whisky, they have been making whisky commercially for coming on 100 years.  And it's Scottish whisky they are obsessed with and their distillers have gone to great lengths to emulate our dram.

There was a thing on the news a few weeks back, the Japanese cleaned up at the annual scotch awards!

Well strictly speaking that's not possible, as only whisky made in Scotland can be sold as 'Scotch'.  But 'Scotch' is nothing but a cheap marketing term, a word I refuse to use, it's what Americans call our whisky.  America is also why 99% of the whisky made in Scotland is chill filtered.  Many moons ago a large consignment of whisky delivered to New York was rejected and returned to Scotland.  It was sitting on the dock in New York waiting to be picked up.  When the buyer inspected it one freezing cold morning he rejected it because it was cloudy.  No amount of reassurance from the distillers and blenders would convince him that whisky turning cloudy in the cold was normal.  Americans know best so they returned it.  Also others in America rejected whisky cos it would go cloudy when ice was added.  So the biggest customer got what the biggest customer wanted, chill filtering which removed all the oils and impurities from the dram (and along with it half the taste).  Which meant we all got chill filtering.  It wasn't until the mid 90's when Glenmorangie (who are also responsible for all the fancy wood tom foolery) bought the decommissioned Ardbeg distillery that we once again saw a distillery operating with a zero chill filtered output and Ardbeg went from bust to become a global cult whisky and 24/7 production.

Some would say that Glenmorangie are possibly responsible for the resurrection and wild success of not just Ardbeg but Scottish Whisky as a whole.  They understood marketing, that fooling around with wine, sherry, port,run, fresh wood casks can make great whisky and also that chill filtering generally sucks. 

Jim Murry.  Self publicist, self appointed world whisky expert, brings out his 'Whisky Bible' each year and what better way to further publicise himself than to pick controversial whiskies for The Whisky Bibles global whisky of the year.  Having shocked everybody by naming Ardbeg as the undisputed best whisky in the world, why the next year he decided that the Japanese made the best whisky in the world.

But seriously, there is good whisky been made all round the world now.  Certainly Scottish Whisky is massive cash rich industry and still expanding rapidly after decades of decline but yeah the distillers better watch out, quality counts more than anything, and there are plenty of countries round the world now producing top notch barley bree.