That’s partly because “Scotch” is a protected label. You can only call a Whisky Scotch if it was distilled with a certain technique, from certain grains, by certain companies, and matured in certain casks for a certain amount of time. All of it is regulated.
Japanese whisky doesn’t have these limitations. They can just do whatever makes it taste good.
Scotch whisky must be made in Scotland. Similar story with bourbon, bourbon must be made in the United States. In many places you can follow the same recipes and processes as those products, but you may not label them with those terms.
Yes, and being distilled and aged in Scotland are both rules in that rule book. Again, same for bourbon, not all American whiskies are eligible to be labeled as bourbon.
I’m an American, and we just don’t really buy into the whole “you must be from this region to be called this item”. All sparkling wine is champagne, all peaty whiskey is scotch, and all rice liqur is sake.
You can make whiskey, though. According to the EU, if you have a product distilled from grain mash and stored, at full undiluted strength, in wood casks for at least three years, you can call it whiskey. You can produce a Single Malt Whiskey, or a Rye Whiskey, anywhere you want and in fact some German Korn would qualify as whiskey as it’s aged long enough.
Side note: Whisky wasn’t always aged. Originally it pretty much resembled Korn (though German noses have some rather strict standards when it comes to fusel alcohols that Whisky and Vodka producers don’t tend to have), then the UK prohibition came along and distillers had no choice but to let the stuff age in its casks while they fought the legislation, then they were allowed to sell the aged stuff, aged much longer than was previously common, and the rest is history.
Same with Japanese Scotch whiskeys absolutely running the table on ones from Scotland in competitions.
That’s partly because “Scotch” is a protected label. You can only call a Whisky Scotch if it was distilled with a certain technique, from certain grains, by certain companies, and matured in certain casks for a certain amount of time. All of it is regulated.
Japanese whisky doesn’t have these limitations. They can just do whatever makes it taste good.
If it doesn’t come from loch ness it’s just sparkling whisky
Scotch whisky must be made in Scotland. Similar story with bourbon, bourbon must be made in the United States. In many places you can follow the same recipes and processes as those products, but you may not label them with those terms.
Yes, but being made in Scotland isn’t enough to call your whisky Scotch. There’s a whole rulebook.
Yes, and being distilled and aged in Scotland are both rules in that rule book. Again, same for bourbon, not all American whiskies are eligible to be labeled as bourbon.
I’m an American, and we just don’t really buy into the whole “you must be from this region to be called this item”. All sparkling wine is champagne, all peaty whiskey is scotch, and all rice liqur is sake.
You can make whiskey, though. According to the EU, if you have a product distilled from grain mash and stored, at full undiluted strength, in wood casks for at least three years, you can call it whiskey. You can produce a Single Malt Whiskey, or a Rye Whiskey, anywhere you want and in fact some German Korn would qualify as whiskey as it’s aged long enough.
Side note: Whisky wasn’t always aged. Originally it pretty much resembled Korn (though German noses have some rather strict standards when it comes to fusel alcohols that Whisky and Vodka producers don’t tend to have), then the UK prohibition came along and distillers had no choice but to let the stuff age in its casks while they fought the legislation, then they were allowed to sell the aged stuff, aged much longer than was previously common, and the rest is history.
The Japanese distilleries are following all the rules. They are just doing it in Japan and better.