Japanese whisky named world’s finest dram

A Japanese single-malt whisky was named the world’s best for the first time by a prestigious guide released Monday, which failed to place a Scotch in its top ranking. The Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 was described as “thick, dry, as rounded as a snooker ball” by Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible, which awarded it a record-equalling 97.5 points out of 100. Three bourbons from the U.S. took second, third and fourth places. The whisky bible said in its editorial for the guide that it was time for Scotch distilleries to stop resting on their laurels.

It is time for a little dose of humility … to get back to basics.

Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible

Whisky has been made commercially in Japan since the 1920s, after a Japanese student who studied in Glasgow, Masataka Taketsuru, moved home with his Scottish wife and helped start the Yamazaki distillery near Kyoto. Yamazaki’s maker, Japan’s Suntory Holdings, bought the U.S. maker of Jim Beam bourbon for nearly $16 billion earlier this year.

World whisky