When a bottle of Yamazaki 55-year-old whisky sold for a record $795,000 at an auction in Hong Kong in August it was proof of two things. The whisky, matured in Japanese oak casks that can impart vanilla, honey and floral notes and a hint of burning incense, is a collector’s item. Also, they do not make it any more.
The spiralling prices of top Japanese whiskies shows one of the biggest problems facing any spirits maker: if it underestimates the future demand for a product it will only bottle and sell decades in the future, it cannot go back and increase the supply. Many wish they had more of their prized liquors to offer, but it is too late now.
You might think that distillers would be grateful to anyone who solved this conundrum, but not the Scotch Whisky Association. Its reaction this week to Bespoken Spirits, a Silicon Valley venture that can make spirits in days rather than decades, was brusque. It threatened to “take action all over the world” to stop Bespoken circumventing the rule that Scotch must age in oak casks for at least three years.