At this time, distilleries began to close, starting with Hanyu. In 2000, they sold their remaining stock and equipment. Karuizawa distillery closed the following year and Mars Shinshu shortly after. These events marked the bottom of the decline in Japanese whisky sales. The remaining producers continued to make high-quality distillates, but production volumes were limited.
Whiskey distillers called these illicit traders the "water of life" men - or "Wherretts" (from the Gaelic uisce beatha). Most of these illegal whiskey distillers did not make their own whiskey from scratch. Instead, they bought whiskey in bulk from legal distilleries, transported it to the woods and then added ingredients to flavor it.
It wasn't only the number of Jewish congregates that went up – the number of rabbis did as well. Unlike the Catholic Church, which had a formal way of distinguishing a priest from a layperson, the Jewish didn't have such a mechanism in place. So if a wine lover came together with a few friends and declared himself their rabbis, who was going to refute the claim?
Soon the fledgling Scotch industry attracted the attention of the Scottish Parliament, which introduced punitive taxes on Scotch in 1644. Naturally, this gave rise to the Scotch black market as not everyone was ready to part with their hard-earned money so easily.
