Any long-time whisky enthusiast has witnessed the whisky boom pick up steam over the past 2-3 decades. The tried and true offerings from years past are still very popular. At the same time, a flood of new bottles from start-up distillers hit the market every year. In such a landscape, it's not surprising that many high-quality whiskeys are underappreciated. To help some of them out, we have scoured the internet for whiskies that deserve more attention, according to the most informed whisky pundits like....
During World War II the distillery lost its glory when it was run over by London bootleggers. In 1949, the then owners of the distillery were declared bankrupt due to unpaid tax bills. Fortunately, it was bought at auction in 1950 for 71,000 pounds by the Chivas Brothers, who turned it into the home of the legendary...
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.
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.