Could they have gotten away with still calling it a Japanese whisky? Probably, but by omitting that from the label Kaiyo takes away the potential fine. Almost all aging happens in Japan, but Kaiyo finishes the aging on a boat in open ocean (Kaiyo in fact translates to ‘ocean’). It’s a cask-strength whisky when, even now, most Japanese whiskies stay around the 86º range. They use mizunara casks to age all of their spirit, an expensive but unique touch that differentiates the core Kaiyo line. The Kaiyo Cask Strength is contradictory in many ways - it doesn’t say “Japanese whisky” anywhere on the label, yet it is distilled and aged in Japan.
It’s not known from which distillery Kaiyo gets their distillate, but all aging is done by Kaiyo. A well-known example of this is Burnside, which is nearly all Balvenie distillate but has a dash of Glenfiddich, meaning no bottling can be called a Balvenie single malt but can be sold under a different label.įor Kaiyo, their whisky is teaspooned at the new make stage - their new make comes from one distillery, with just a bit added from another after distillation but before any aging. The biggest beneficiaries of this method are independent bottlers, who can then bottle under their own brands without the single malt label. Teaspooning can occur at any point in the process, from mixing it into the new make to adding just prior to bottling. Well, here’s the thing…it’s not always about the designation, and there are other ways to make money on whisky without calling it a single malt. So why would a whisky company not want “single malt” on the label? Single malt is popular and still rising in price, whether Scottish or Japanese or insert-country-here. The actual amount doesn’t matter - just that tiny bit of additional whisky eliminates the single malt designation. Teaspooning is when you take what would otherwise qualify as a single malt and “teaspoon” in some whisky from another distillery. Pop quiz: how many of you have heard the term “teaspooning”? I should really put that to an Instagram poll.
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