In late 2014, the whiskey world received a shock. World-renowned whiskey expert Jim Murray had selected the top whiskies for the year and an unusual distiller topped the list: Yamazaki. Praising the Japanese distillery’s single malt sherry as “near incredible genius,” Murray gave the whiskey a notably high score – 97.5 out of 100.[1]
Yamazaki’s ascendance in the whiskey world in 2014, along with the popularization of Suntory whiskey that came as a result of the 2003 film Lost in Translation, marked a significant change in the way the high-class liquor community (traditionally dominated by Westerners) viewed whiskey and the way they viewed Japan. The brown liquor, once considered the exclusive domain of the Scottish Highlands, the Irish countryside and the American Appalachians, was now being produced in the highest quality in the land of the rising sun. In short, Japan was revolutionizing the international whiskey industry.
How did this happen? Why has the Japanese whiskey business, begun in Japan in the late 1800s compared to the early 1600s in Western Europe, flourished in recent years? Why did the Japanese whiskey business begin in the first place? The answers, in part, seem tied to the end of Edo period isolationism in Japan (at least vis-à-vis the West, as Japan remained open to the rest of Asia) and the concurrent development of the notion of wakon yōsai, meaning “Japanese spirit, Western learning.” As Dr. Kenkichiro Koizumi of Bunkyo University has written, wakon yōsai developed in the period in between the forced opening of Japan’s ports to the West in 1853 and the Second World War as a way Japan could adopt Western technology without sacrificing a unique Japanese identity.[2]
This paper argues that the development of the whiskey industry in Japan provides a unique lens through which to view wakon yōsai, both during the pre-WWII period and during the period since the war. To do so, it will trace the history of Japanese whiskey alongside the development of this concept, and discuss the way whiskey, which Japanese tastes were not initially accustomed to, exemplifies the adoption and transformation of Western commodities into distinctly Japanese ones.
I. From the Emerald Isle to the Land of the Rising Sun
Though whiskey has, for much of history, been widely considered a “Western” product, the chemical process on which its production relies – distillation – actually found its start in ancient Mesopotamia, in what is today Iraq and Syria, when chemist Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan invented the distillation process for medicinal purposes.[3] Whiskey itself however, finds its first mention in the thirteenth century, in Ireland. Aqua vitæ, as the Irish called it (literally meaning “water of life”) made its first appearance in the ancient Irish Annals of Clonmacnoise in 1405, where ironically enough, it was noted as the cause of death of a political leader. “A.D. 1405” reads the ancient Irish text, “Richard Magranell, Chieftain of Moyntyreolas, died at Christmas by taking a surfeit of aqua vitæ.”[4]
Despite the risks Magranell demonstrated accompanied whiskey consumption, the liquor’s supposedly medicinal qualities (an English text contemporary to the Annals wrote that whiskey “binds the Belly, and drieth up Moisture…” in apparently medically beneficial way) as well as its more recreational uses, ensured its mass expansion.[5] By the late nineteenth century, Ireland’s aqua vitæ had proliferated throughout the world. Whiskey had been used as currency; been the cause of violent conflict in the United States; and had migrated from Ireland to the rest of Europe, the Americas, Asia, and notably, to Japan.[6]
In the story of Japanese whiskey, two figures loom large: Masataka Taketsuru and Shinjiro Torii. Together, the two men were responsible for what are still Japan’s biggest whiskey producers, Suntory and Nikka. Both, however, came to the business in vastly different ways.
Little information exists about Shinjiro Torii. The internet suggests that he was born in 1879 in Osaka, but no scholarly literature confirms this. The Suntory website, which provides the most authoritative source on Torii’s life, explains that Torii founded Suntory in 1899, opening a store for Western wines and liquors in Osaka. Though such spirits had likely been introduced to Japan several decades earlier when Commodore William Perry of the United States Navy forced an American-Japanese trade agreement on the country, they were unpopular in Japan and Torii found little interest for his venture.[7] Despite this, Torii was undeterred, the Suntory website continues, “He continued towards his vision, developing original wine for many years. His goal was to create a Western-style liquor that would suit Japanese tastes.”[8]
Though Torii eventually developed a popular wine product, his real desire, to create a Japanese whiskey, would not be fulfilled until Masataka Taketsuru, born just five years before Torii opened his first store in Osaka, fell in love with whiskey.
Taketsuru got his start with whiskey as many today still do, in college.[9] There is a dearth of information on how Taketsuru was first introduced to the spirit, but suffice to say, once he tried it, he was hooked. In 1919, after finishing at Osaka University, Taketsuru traveled to the then-undisputed whiskey capital of the world, Scotland, to study at the University of Glasgow.[10] Upon returning to Japan a year later, Taketsuru brought with him a Scottish wife, Rita Taketsuru, along with two notebooks filled with his observations on the Scottish whiskey-making process.[11]
Once back in Japan, Torii hired Taketsuru to help him create a distinctively Japanese whiskey. In 1923, the two founded the Yamazaki distillery near Osaka. The initial results were, like Torii’s initial attempts at marketing Western alcohol in Japan, failures. After the first run of Suntory Shirofuda – a Scottish style whiskey – sold poorly, Torii left Yamazaki to found his own distillery in an area of Japan he felt was more like the Scottish Highlands, and thus more appropriate for making whiskey.[12] Torii continued at Yamazaki, eventually creating Suntory Kakubin – which is still Japan’s most popular whiskey.[13]
In the relatively short time since the 1937 success of Suntory Kakubin, Japanese whiskey has grown exponentially in popularity, both in Japan and elsewhere. This is so much so that there are concerns about a Japanese whiskey shortage anticipated for the next decade or so.[14] In short, Japanese whiskey has undergone a boom so big that it might bust the industry (at least for some time). But the question still remains why Japanese distillers have proven so adept at whiskey production. The answer, at least in part, comes with wakon yōsai.
II. Wakon Yōsai
In “In Search of “Wakon”: The Cultural Dynamics of the Rise of Manufacturing Technology in Postwar Japan” (2002), Koizumi sought to identify why technology in postwar Japan has risen to such heights that it threatens Western technology advances, despite Japan having been defeated in World War II.[15] “How can we explain,” he asked, “the fact that in a mere twenty-five to thirty-five years Japan was able not just to catch up with the United States and Europe but to reach a level of technological expertise that could be perceived as a threat by the United States?”[16] His answer was that there exists a spirit valuing innovation in Japan that permeates the technology industry to the point that new products are constantly created which strive to solve problems that have not even arisen yet.
Though whiskey and technological innovation are not normally thought of as occupying the same realm, the spirit that Koizumi finds notable about the Japanese approach to technology is also notable in the Japanese approach to whiskey making. Consider: Japanese whiskey began to develop slightly after Perry’s expedition to Japan and the ensuing trade introduced Western products en masse to Japan. As these products began to flood the Japanese market, wakon yōsai was introduced as a way for Japan to compete against the influx, the idea being that the Japanese spirit would yield better Western products than the West could produce. However, defeat in WWII, as Koizumi notes, “destroyed this framework completely, leaving a vacuum in its place.”[17] After the war, Koizumi writes, the technology field in Japan was focused on merely adapting Western technology to Japan, or replicating it, not doing it better.
Nonetheless, by 2002, the time of Koizumi’s writing, this had changed so much so that, as he wrote, Japan’s technology was threatening the dominance of the U.S. as the world’s technological superpower. (I will not contest this view, though the rise of the internet and the current technology giants suggests Koizumi was premature, though there is now talk about the Asian century.) What had changed? Koizumi thinks a reinvigoration of wakon yōsai.
The development of Japanese whiskey in the period in between Perry’s expedition and the Second World War and then the reinvigoration and subsequent dominance of Japanese whiskey in the last several years mirrors the reinvigoration that Koizumi points to in industry. Though it should be noted that this similarity is no doubt anecdotal, it is nonetheless notable. Koizumi discusses firearms as a case study. When the Portuguese brought guns to Japan in 1543, some daimyo were interested in replicating them but Japanese smiths initially met technological difficulties and limited success. But, Koizumi writes, when Nobunaga employed volley fire in battle in 1575, his innovation “predate[d] similar European innovation by some two decades.”[18]
Whiskey’s development was similar. When Torii and Taketsuru attempted simply to replicate the Scottish methods that Taketsuru had fallen in love with in college, the Japanese market rejected their offerings. When they changed their whiskey to be something more than a mere replication as Nobunaga had done with firearms, making it distinctly Japanese, the popularity of Suntory’s products soared. In its move from facsimile to originality, Japanese whiskey had embodied wakon yōsai in a notable way. On the Japanese whiskey website Dekantā, a section on the history of Japanese whiskey evidences this: “Distillers in Japan have been extremely ingenious in discovering new ways to make their whisky distinctively Japanese. Among other things, they’ve tried new stills with new shapes, many different types of yeast, malts and barley, new mixing techniques, and all sorts of different casks.”[19]
Nearing one hundred years since the founding of the first Japanese whiskey distillery, Japan has come to dominate the international whiskey market, making it the third largest producer of whiskey in the world.[20] Given the industry’s contemporary development alongside wakon yōsai, there is no doubt that the Japanese spirit has found a unique venue in the Japanese whiskey business.
III. “The Barrel and the Plate” – Food Pairings with Japanese Whiskey
The very first whiskey ever sold in Japan was a failure. Suntory Shirofuda, released in 1929, was the product of several years of work by Masataka Taketsuru and Shinjiro Torii – the progenitors of Japanese whiskey – and sold incredibly poorly. The problem, according to Suntory’s website, was the taste. The whiskey had a “a smoky flavor,” the site reads, “that did not suit Japanese palates.”[21] Taketsuru and Torii had based their initial product on Scotch, which Taketsuru had learned how to make at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. The result was a well- made Scotch, but not a whiskey that Japanese people enjoyed.
To overcome the taste problem, which had to do with the whiskey’s smokiness, or “peatiness,” Suntory’s next iteration was the Suntory Kakubin – which came in a “signature” square bottle and, more importantly, contained aromas of vanilla and “an enticing palate of biscuit and mild spice,” which offset the peatiness and allowed for a smoother taste holding a wider number of flavors.[22] This change had several critical impacts. The first, and most significant for the history of Japanese whiskey, was that sales skyrocketed.[23] Suntory released Kakubin in 1937 and the liquor remains Japan’s most popular whiskey today.[24] As a consequence of this success, Japan’s whiskey distilleries focused their efforts almost completely on the production of smoother, more aromatic whiskey, in the mold of Kakubin.
Though initial efforts had not fixated on smoothness, it turned out that Japan’s whiskey distilleries were actually predisposed to produce smoother whiskey as a result of their environments. Japan Today reported that “Japan’s whisky distilleries are, collectively, among the highest in the world, with many situated around 700-800 meters above sea level in the country’s spectacular alpine regions.”[25] The result is a lower water boiling point, which in turn yields a whiskey with less bitter notes of alcohol. The outcome is a smoother whiskey, with less of the “bite” that can accompany many kinds of Western whiskies.[26]
The second impact of the change in flavor profile, auxiliary to popularity, was that Japanese whiskies were better to pair food with. Because of the emphasis on smoothness, coupled with Japanese distilleries’ ability to cut out some of whiskey’s bite, Japanese whiskies flavor ranges were generally more expansive than many Western whiskies. The unique boiling process, in addition to making the whiskey’s taste less severe, retained many of the aromas and flavors of the ingredients that make up the liquor itself.
The opportunities for food pairings grew only more extensive as distillers attempted to make their products more distinctly Japanese.[27] In addition to high-altitude boiling, distillers’ use of pure water sources such as snow-fed streams, bamboo filtration systems, and Japanese rather than European oak for barrels, lent Japanese whiskey an ever-more distinct flavor profile that opened more ever-more prospects for pairing.[28] Japanese Mizunara oak has distinct notes of sandalwood and coconut that allow for whiskies aged in such barrels to be paired with lighter foods. Other innovations lend many Japanese whiskies “hints of salinity…” which make them “perfect for matching the prominent umami characteristic of Asian food.”9
The change in flavor to adapt to the needs of the Japanese market yielded much more than a more successful Japanese whiskey, it yielded a new type of whiskey with its own vast opportunities for food pairings. The rest of this paper is dedicated to discussing a Japanese whiskey and food pairing as well as an American whiskey and food pairing and comparing the two.
The first pairing I tried was Nikka distillery’s “From the Barrel” whiskey and Osa Middletown’s Tapping Reeve Cheese. Nikka’s “From the Barrel” whiskey was chosen because it was ranked Whisky Advocate’s number one whiskey of 2018 and because its blend and deep flavor profile is archetypical of Japanese whiskey innovation.
The flavor of this particular whiskey is the result of a blend of “over 100 different constituent whiskies,” yielding a profile that is balanced, without a bite.[29]10 Though it had a hint of peat, or smokiness, honeysuckle, spicy sweetness and a slight salty note were the main flavors. This matched perfectly with the Tapping Reeve cheese, which had a sharp flavor that both cut through the whiskey’s sweetness and brought out its earthiness.
Notably, I had some of the leftover glass of Nikka with my dinner of sea scallops, and the whiskey paired perfectly with that as well. The varied balance of flavors of “From the Barrel” is characteristic of Japanese whiskey and gave me a whole new profile with my dinner than it had with the cheese. Where the cheese brought out the whiskey’s earthy flavor, the scallops were complemented by the hint of salt in the whiskey. Moreover, the whiskey brought out a smoky flavor in the scallops that was not present when I tried them with a glass of water instead.
Altogether, my experience with Nikka’s “From the Barrel,” which Whisky Advocate described as “typically Japanese [and] singularly magnificent,” affirmed what research showed about pairing Japanese whiskey with food.
The comparative pairing I tried was a Bulleit bourbon paired with the same Tapping Reeve Cheese, for the sake of having a control. I chose Bulleit because it is a classic American whiskey. In the words of The Whiskey Jug whiskey blog, Bulleit bourbon is “flavorful… and versatile as a whiskey can be making a favorite of whiskey drinkers and bartenders alike.”[30]11 I reasoned that my comparison should have the main traits of Japanese whiskey, versatility and smoothness, for the sake of providing a comparison between similar drinks, which differ the most in nationality.
The result of this pairing was good, both Bulleit and the Tapping Reeve are delicious by themselves. However, in many ways, the two cancelled each other out. When I consumed the Tapping Reeve before the Bulleit, the bite of the bourbon would immediately drown out the flavor of the cheese. When I tried the pairing in reverse, the bourbon was still more powerful. Where the cheese had opened up the Nikka’s flavor, I felt that with the Bulleit, the cheese was merely another food in my mouth.
To see if the cheese alone was the problem, I also tried the Bulleit with a cheeseburger, hoping that the meatier flavor of the burger would cut out the peppery and spicy flavor of the bourbon. It did to an extent, but I still felt that I would have preferred a whiskey that could open up with lighter flavors, to complement the richness of the cheeseburger, as the Nikka had complemented the richness of the scallops. In conclusion I felt that the Bulleit was best enjoyed by itself, where the Nikka was actually more enjoyable with a pairing than it was alone.
[1] Adamcyzk, Alicia. “The World’s Best Whisky Isn’t Made In Scotland” Forbes. Nov. 04, 2014. https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciaadamczyk/2014/11/04/the-worlds-best-whisky-isnt-made-in-scotland/#5af1e6bb4edb.
[2] Koizumi, Kenkichiro. “In Search of “Wakon”: The Cultural Dynamics of the Rise of Manufacturing Technology in Postwar Japan” Technology and Culture Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan. 2002), 30.
[3] Sood, Suemedha. “A guide to the lingo and history of whiskey” BBC Travel. Mar. 18, 2011.
[4] Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the Four Masters, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616 ed. O’Donovan, John. (Dublin: Hodges, Smith and Co., Grafton Street, 1856), Second Edition. Vol. IV. 785. https://archive.org/stream/annalsofkingdomo04ocleuoft#page/784/mode/2up.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Whiskey Rebellion” History Channel. https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/whiskey-rebellion; Harrison, Joel. “Whisky in India” liveMint. Dec. 29, 2011. https://www.livemint.com/Companies/ny0g0a6Vo9Xz7DlB2TGcYI/Whisky-in-India.html; Baldvin, Henry. “A Short History of Japanese Whisky” Dekantā. May 26, 2015. https://dekanta.com/a-short-history-of-japanese-whisky/.
[7] “Commodore Perry and Japan (1853-1854)” Asia for Educators. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1750_perry.htm.
[8] “How it all began” Suntory. https://www.suntory.vn/en/what_we_believe/yatte_minahare/how_it_all_began.html.
[9] “Exhibition — The Father of Japanese Whiskey, TAKETSURU Masataka” Osaka University. Nov. 01, 2011. http://www.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/news/seminar/2011/11/2325.
[10] “Masataka Taketsuru” University of Glasgow. https://universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH24560&type=P.
[11] Maki. “Masataka Taketsuru, The Father of Japanese Whiskey And His Two Loves” JustHungry. http://justhungry.com/masataka-taketsuru-father-japanese-whiskey-and-his-two-loves.
[12] Ibid.
[13] “Whisky 101: The History of Japanese Whiskey” Dekantā. Jan. 23, 2017.
[14] Daley, Justin. “Why There’s A Japanese Whisky Shortage” SmithsonianMag. May 16, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-tv-show-and-high-quality-has-led-japanese-whisky-shortage-180969102/.
[15] Koizumi, “In Search of ‘Wakon’”, 29.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid., 30.
[18] Ibid., 33-34.
[19] “A Short Story of Japanese Whisky” Dekantā. https://dekanta.com/a-short-story-of-japanese-whisky/.
[20] Ibid.
[21] “How it all began” Suntory. https://www.suntory.vn/en/what_we_believe/yatte_minahare/how_it_all_began.html.
[22] Nellie Ming Lee, “From ridicule to renown: the story of Japanese whisky,” South China Morning Post. Oct. 8, 2015. https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/1865201/ridicule-renown-story-japanese-whisky.
[23] “Whisky 101: The History of Japanese Whiskey” Dekantā. Jan. 23, 2017.
[24] Ibid.
[25] George Koutsakis, “Why Japanese whisky works so well with food pairing,” Japan Today. Mar. 21, 2018. https://japantoday.com/category/features/food/Why-Japanese-whisky-works-so-well-with-food-pairing.
[26] Ibid.
[27] “A Short Story of Japanese Whisky” Dekantā. https://dekanta.com/a-short-story-of-japanese-whisky/.
[28] Koutsakis, “Why Japanese whiskey.”
[29] “#1. Nikka From the Barrel,” WhiskyAdvocate. http://whiskyadvocate.com/top20/2018/1-nikka-from-the-barrel/.
[30] Josh Peters, “Bulleit Bourbon Review,” The Whiskey Jug. Feb. 1, 2014. http://thewhiskeyjug.com/bourbon- whiskey/bulleit-bourbon-review/.