In this episode of Know Your Stuff, Gear Patrol Co-Founder, Chief Content Officer and reformed whiskey collector Ben Bowers educates Editor Johnny Brayson on the confusing and sometimes sketchy production practices surrounding Japanese Whiskey as well as the industry’s efforts to fix it.
Welcome to Know Your Stuff, a podcast where we unbox trends in consumer culture, one topic at a time.
Today, Gear Patrol’s Co-Founder, Chief Content Officer and reformed whiskey collector Ben Bowers educates Editor Johnny Brayson on the confusing and sometimes sketchy production practices surrounding Japanese Whisky as well as the industry’s efforts to fix it.
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Johnny Brayson: Hey Ben, so as you know, I know a fair amount about bourbon and scotch, but Japanese Whisky has always been a little bit of a blind spot for me, but I've heard some rumblings that this year, some new regulations went into effect concerning that spirit. So I was wondering if you could tell me some more about that.
Ben Bowers: Japanese Whisky is going through some big changes this year in particular, a set of new regulations have come into effect that essentially are an attempt to more clearly define what can be called the Japanese Whisky moving forward. How we got here. Breaks really into three parts, which was like, what was Japanese Whiskey before these regulations? What kind of caused people to feel like there was a need for more regulations? And then. What the regulations are now and how they affect things moving forward. I guess I'll start with what was Japanese Whisky before because my impression of it has always just been it’s basically scotch from Japan. A lot of people share that same notion about it for good reason But the truth is unlike a lot of the other whiskey styles out there, particularly bourbon and scotch, the term Japanese Whisky really was a very loose definition.
The truth is that there weren't a lot of concrete guidelines that mandated, Oh, in order to be called a Japanese Whisky, it had to be made in Japan or made using certain ingredients or really made following a certain set of steps or practices, which those are the kinds of things that are very common in.
Most of the other major whiskey types that are out there. So you really had a world where, you know, a Japanese distillery could buy whiskey made in another country, bring it over to Japan, put it in a bottle, and slap a label on it that says this is Japanese Whisky, and it was a product of Japan, and sell it as a Japanese whiskey.
Johnny Brayson: Okay, so what did these new regulations, like, where do they come from and what do they stipulate that Japanese Whisky has to be? These regulations, they're not coming down from the Japanese government.
Ben Bowers: Essentially what happened is a trade group called the Japan Spirits and Liquors Makers Association. It's a voluntary group comprised of distillers located in Japan. That group identified this looming risk, which was, hey, Japanese Whisky's doing really well right now. There seems to be some kind of Uh, positive association most consumers have with that term, but if we let things continue to run wild and, and don't put a lid on this, there's a real chance that enough people could buy something that they thought was Japanese whiskey that they hated or thought was bad that that reputation could really be tarnished.
So they got together and introduced a series of stipulations that distillers should follow in order to be called Japanese Whisky. And they announced those in 2021, um, but they gave, essentially the market a three year grace period. So they said in April of 2024 is when this is going to go into effect.
So, start getting your ducks in a row now. Be prepared. So, the regulations came out a while ago, but it's really only this year when you started to see the ramifications of those stipulations trickle through the market. You said that these regulations are voluntary. Yeah. So if a whiskey brand can still do whatever they want and bring in whiskey from Chile and call it Japanese, like what, there's no ramifications for that.
Johnny Brayson: So how do these regulations actually kind of stop the problem?
Ben Bowers: It's a really good question, and I think the cynics, that's the first thing they're going to point out, is the biggest holes are that not every distillery in Japan has to be a part of this trade organization. So, if they're not a part of the trade organization, why should they care about following regulations made by the trade organization?
But furthermore, because it's coming from a trade organization and not the Japanese government, there doesn't seem to be any noticeable penalties for violating the agreements. If this were a government. Uh, stipulated set of requirements. Theoretically, the government could step in and shut down the business or remove it to the liquor license or something to that effect.
Johnny Brayson: You're not doing the correct thing. He's going to get in trouble. If you're calling your whiskey a bourbon and it's not a bourbon.
Ben Bowers: And if other countries start trying to sell stuff, slapping bourbon on the label, right, because of international trade agreements, you know, they could run a foul with their international relations with America.
So I think you asked a question of like, well, does this really mean anything? I think there's some truth to the fact that you could criticize this as being window dressing and not really substantively changing the problem, but you know, the association does, its membership does include most, if not all of the biggest traditional Japanese Whisky distilleries that at least those of us in America associate with the category.
So they have a lot of big players on board and. These are big players are the biggest sources of the whiskey you see on shelves in the U. S. And so, while the regulations might not guarantee that absolutely every bottle out there kind of falls into some new uniform set of criteria, I do think it's, it is a little bit extra layer of policing that will ensure at least a larger quantity of whiskey on shelves follows some general rules.
Johnny Brayson: So just like greater consistency under like, House of Centauri brands and that sort of thing that you're most likely to see in your liquor store.
Ben Bowers: It's not perfect by any means and, you know, we've talked a little earlier here about, well, why doesn't just the Japanese government step in and do what every other country does that's got a whiskey making tradition that they want to protect and, I don't know, I can't claim to be an expert on all of those nuances.
I can tell you from a high level, there seems to be a pretty interesting thing. Source of reticence, uh, or I would imagine a source of reticence that, you know, ties back to a whisky making tradition that is native to Japan and goes back centuries and it involves rice whisky. It is not something that, you know, a Westerner or especially an American drinker, if they had a sip of it would call whiskey, but within Japan, it's very much known as whiskey and it's culturally very relevant.
Despite the popularity of what we know as Japanese Whisky here, and it being a big export and doing well, I can imagine the Japanese government doesn't want to put down regulations that might harm a tradition that is native to its culture, right? And so, I would guess that is part of the reason why there remains some reticence.
I think it's also just, economic reality, as we sort of set out here, this is booming business. Demand is growing really quickly. If you were to get too authoritarian about regulations, you might really inhibit the ability for Japanese distilleries to kind of take advantage of this moment where whiskey is a commodity. Love is at an all time high and you might really force businesses to suffer and businesses are part of your economy and things of that nature. So, there are some reasons to understand why the Japanese government hasn't been as heavy handed with this as they could be.
Johnny Brayson: Why don't we just quickly go over what the regulations are.
Ben Bowers: First of all, to be qualified as a Japanese Whisky, it's gotta be made with malted grains. Rice, like we talked about earlier, can't be used, for example, to qualify as a Japanese Whisky. The water. That's used in the distillation process also has to come from Japan. Um, the saccharification process, which is probably like the nerdiest thing of all this.
We talked about it earlier, but it's how you kind of take these grains and turn them to sugar. It has to be done through a traditional, you know, fermentation process. And it's got to take place in a Japanese distillery as well. It's got to be matured in wooden casks stored in Japan for at least three years.
The bottling also has to take place in Japan with a minimum strength of 40 percent APV or 80 proof and they also allow for plain caramel coloring to be added. So you can't do that in bourbon's case, for example, but Canadian Whiskey, for example, does allow, uh, coloring. Some other whiskey standards do as well.So those are. The general standards that this trade group has come up with to better define and add some consistency to what's called Japanese Whisky.
Johnny Brayson: So out of those, which do you think have the biggest impact on how a whiskey is actually gonna taste for a consumer? Like is some of it just a pride thing of like this water comes from Japan or does some of it actually have a pretty major effect?
Ben Bowers: If I'm being real and you sort of trying to tick off or what are the biggest factors that influence a whiskey's final flavor. Like, the actual country that the whiskey was made in has very little to do with it. If I had to pick out the biggest ones, barrel and the barrel aging process is estimated to be responsible for like 40 to 50 percent of a whiskey's flavor.
So mandating that it's got to go into wooden barrels and that they've got to be aged for at least three years, that's going to have a big impact in making sure, you know, to some degree. The whiskey you're tasting has a general flavor profile. If the barrel, you know, carries such importance, then having the only stipulation outside of the three year aging, which is pretty minimal anyway, but having the only stipulation would be that it's a wooden barrel.
Johnny Brayson: I mean, that's so broad, but with just a barrel being made of wood, I mean, it could be almost anything. Like, that seems like it could have led to tremendous diversity in the category.
Ben Bowers: I should be clear that they do have a size maximum for the barrels. This is where you can really start to nerd out and people like me get excited, but there are lots of different - So the barrel has a big impact on flavor, but there's various aspects of the barrel that come into play, right? So how big is the barrel plays a big role in it because, you know, the way whiskey gets its flavor is the whiskey intermingles with the wood. And then the Japanese stipulation does mandate that a barrel can't be bigger than 700 liters. It's not a complete free for all and that it can be in any size barrel, but yeah, not mandating that it has to be a particular char like bourbon or a particular wood, I actually kind of see that as a positive Johnny that leaves you a little bit of room, at least in the future to experiment as a distiller and really do the minimum number of things you need to get some consistency to consumers, but also leave some breathing room to play around.
Johnny Brayson: What would you say is the main impression of Japanese Whisky as a category, especially in the West?
Ben Bowers: I mean, this is where you go into dangerous territory of like promoting stereotypes. I don't, I don't want to speak for the world. I can speak, you know, as a whiskey collector and fan, sort of my general sense. I think the powers that be are right to want to protect the term Japanese Whisky and not let it spiral out of control because I do think it is a premium term that is attractive to Western buyers. It connotes something that is premium, high quality, and if that were to go away or sort of, and the effort to just make money while these things are booming, you sort of ruin that terminology, I think all Japanese distilleries would be hurt by that outcome.
Johnny Brayson: I think though, you know, in the whiskey, not just with Japanese Whisky, but in the whiskey category as a whole, you know, lately we cover the industry, so we're kind of exposed to a lot of this stuff, but we've seen a lot of experimentation in recent years. You know, this sort of blending of whiskeys from different regions, different types of interesting cask finishings. With all of that going on, do these regional labels really still matter all that much as long as at the end of the day, if you're still getting great whiskey?
Ben Bowers: There's certainly like a valuable crutch or shorthand for those of us as consumers to like narrow down what may be like a massive product category and better sort of refine certain characteristics that we like and sort of narrow the field of choice.
I also think there's definitely something to kind of codifying various whiskey making traditions and protecting them so that, you know, whiskey as a category has and continues to offer like a wide range of styles to, to suit a lot of different flavor profiles. I know you're a fan of cast finishing or bourbon that's cast finished or barrel finished.
I'm curious, given just the amount of whiskey news we monitor, it seems like every distillery out there is now doing it. Is there something lost in that, in your mind, if everyone glams onto the same trend?
Johnny Brayson: I mean, I think as long as they're coming up with new ways to do it and experimenting with different types of cask finishing, like there was, um, a Whistlepig release, a Rye from a couple of years ago, their Boss Hog, which is like a big annual release that was finished in this homemade Greek liqueur that nobody's ever heard of and I think there was also like fig involved and it was just like Greek mythology inspired rye, extremely unusual, extremely delicious and not something that you're going to normally see. I definitely think there should be room for experimentation just to keep things interesting. And like you said, to make sure that not everybody is doing the same thing.
Ben Bowers: You know, on the experimentation front. I think one area, and it's funny, it's poignant in this case, you know, when these regulations came out, some Japanese distilleries, including Nikka, which is a big one, talked about how Nikka includes some scotch that's been distilled, you know, in Scotland as part of the blend that makes up their flavor profile, right? And so from a brand point of view, they believe that's part of what kind of gives the whiskey its flavor characteristics. And so when you come in and say, Hey, you've been doing this for a while. Now you can't label this as such. It kind of creates a weird controversy where, you know, I think a product a lot of people agree is a pretty excellent whiskey and enjoy, even though it does involve a bit of taking whiskey that's made elsewhere and incorporating it into a larger product.
I don't think it's as straightforward as people maybe imagine it on the surface, particularly again, with Japan's own whisky making tradition. There's a lot of landmines to kind of navigate around it. But I also think you know, blending in particular is something that is getting even bigger, you know, some whiskey making traditions, scotch in particular, it's always been about, you know, it's not about the whiskey from a single barrel, like you might see in bourbon. It's about taking lots of different types of whiskeys, maybe whiskeys of different age ranges and, and blending them together to create a final product. I think for me, if I talk about like, where does regulation maybe hurt with the experimentation is that, and it sounds like this Whistlepig example, it might be in that range.
It's like, now that we have access to whiskey being made all over the world, there seems to be some really cool opportunities to take different kinds of spirits and throw them together in a proverbial blender and see what comes out of them and, you know, the way things are set up now, those types of products as cool or as tasty, or as innovative as they might be, they're kind of left in a no man's land in terms of what they can be called and how they can be positioned and packaged. That may lead some consumers to feel sketched out by those types of products and may see them as somehow lesser or other because they don't carry, you know, the label of a particular country or a particular style. And, you know, I think that's a shame. Now that also on the flip side is you could get people putting together a bunch of junk.
Johnny Brayson: And you could also have the fireball situation of, is this even whiskey? Is this even whiskey labeling, calling it a cinnamon whiskey or just a cinnamon?
Ben Bowers: It's just a tricky business. And when the world goes crazy for whiskey all of a sudden, and we get mad about whiskey prices rising and this quote unquote inflation that you see related to whiskey, like And part of that we have to acknowledge is that you just can't ramp up an assembly line and start rolling whiskey out immediately to meet demand.
I mean, this new set of regulations, the whiskey's got to be in barrels for three years before it can be called Japanese Whisky moving forward. So it's just a type of product where there's always going to be this weird delay between consumers want and how quickly the industry can respond to making the product.
Yeah, it's, it's just one of those moments to wrap up here that I think it's, it's Pretty unheard of in whiskey today because so many of these other styles that are well known internationally known Canadian Irish Scotch bourbon, you know, they were codified long ago at least, you know decades ago And they're they've been established by the laws of their nation.
They've been agreed upon by international trade agreements. So The idea of something as big as Japanese Whisky kind of skirting around for so long and not having these kind of things in place and, and frankly, still not even having the same level of protections in place. It's, it's just really surprising.
Uh, and I think it just speaks to this particular quirk about, How popular whiskey became recently and also Japan how diverse their whisky making culture is and perhaps some reticence on not codifying things so strictly that other countries might have because they're got both this Western Inspired whiskey making tradition and the traditional rice whiskey of their country.
Johnny Brayson: Yeah, it sounds like it's pretty good two different markets that they're, they're thinking about at home and abroad.
Ben Bowers: So have I convinced you to go buy some Japanese Whisky now?
Johnny Brayson: I'm not sure if I want Rice Whisky or Scotch style.