Psychiatry Guide

Mekhong is Thailand’s first domestically produced branded golden spirit. Launched in 1941, it quickly became the most popular brand in Thailand. This was helped by a dispute with the French concerning the border with Laos along the Mekong River which gives the brand its name. The name alone inspired patriotic sentiment and the Mekhong brand quickly became synonymous with Thai pride.

Despite being known as a whisky, Mekhong is in fact much closer to a rum. The distilled spirit is made from 95% sugar cane/molasses and 5% rice. This distilled spirit is then blended with a secret recipe of indigenous herbs and spices to produce its distinctive aroma and taste.

Mekhong is distilled, blended and bottled at the Bangyikhan Distillery on the outskirts of Bangkok. Its slightly lower strength of 35% abv means that it mixes well including as an ingredient in cocktails, the most famous of which being the ‘Sabai Sabai’, known as the Thai Welcome Drink.

Mekhong is widely available across South East Asia and is also now available in the UK and Europe.

Mekhong Whiskey is mentioned several times on the album Hell’s Ditch by The Pogues, along with other common Thai drinks.

The band The Refreshments (now known as Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers) have a song named Mekong on the album Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy, which is about a night in a Thai bar with a new friend. The song, with its chorus “Here’s to Life!”, remains a staple of RCPM live shows.

The production of Japanese whisky began as a conscious effort to recreate the style of Scotch whisky. Pioneers like Taketsuru carefully studied the process of making Scotch whisky, and went to great lengths in an attempt to recreate that process in Japan. The location of Yoichi in Hokkaidō was chosen particularly for its terrain and climate, which were in many ways reminiscent of Scotland (although financial constraints resulted in the first distillery actually being built in the more convenient location of Yamazaki on the main island).

One facet of the style of Japanese whisky comes from the way in which blended whisky is produced, and the differing nature of the industry in Japan. Despite the recent rise of interest in single malt whiskies, the vast proportion of whisky sold in the world is still blended. The requirements of blended whiskies are one of the main driving forces behind the diversity of malts produced by Scotland’s distilleries. Typically each distillery will focus on a particular style, and blenders will choose from this wide array of elements offered by all the different distilleries to make their product. Whilst sometimes a particular brand of blended whisky may be owned by a company that also owns one or more distilleries, it is also quite common for trading to take place between the various companies. The components of a blend may involve malt whisky from a number of distilleries, and each of these could conceivably be owned by a different company.

In Japan however a different model is generally adopted. Typically the whisky companies own both the distilleries and the brands of blended whiskies. These companies are often reluctant to trade with their competitors. So a blended whisky in Japan will generally only contain malt whisky from the distilleries owned by that same company (sometimes supplemented with malts imported from Scottish distilleries).

This clearly means that blenders in Japan have in the past had a significantly reduced palette from which to create their products. It has been suggested that this may have been a limiting factor in the success of Japanese blends, particularly outside of Japan.

As a reaction to this, individual distilleries in Japan have become increasingly more diverse over recent years. It is quite common for a single Japanese distillery to produce a wide range of styles, from the smokey and peaty style of Islay, through the heavily sherried, to the lighter and more delicate floral notes of Speyside.

The diversity and innovation to be found in Japanese distilleries may be one of the contributing factors to their recent high profile and acclaim in the global arena. Japanese consumption of whisky also has unique characteristics, lending its whisky’s distinctiveness. Drinkers often drink their whisky with food and in oyuwari and mizuwari.

Two of the most influential figures in the history of Japanese whisky are Shinjiro Torii and Masataka Taketsuru. Torii was a pharmaceutical wholesaler and the founder of Kotobukiya (later to become Suntory). He started importing western liquor and he later created a brand called “Akadama Port Wine”, based on a Portuguese wine which made him a successful merchant. However, he was not satisfied with this success and so he embarked on a new venture which was to become his life’s work: making Japanese whisky for Japanese people. Despite the strong opposition from the company’s executives, Torii decided to build the first Japanese whisky distillery in Yamazaki, a suburb of Kyoto, an area so famous for its excellent water that Sen no Rikyū, the legendary tea master, built his tearoom there.

Torii hired Masataka Taketsuru as a distillery executive. Taketsuru had studied the art of distilling in Scotland, and brought this knowledge back to Japan in the early 1920s. Whilst working for Kotobukiya he played a key part in helping Torii establish the Yamazaki Distillery. In 1934 he left Kotobukiya to form his own company—Dainipponkaju—which would later change its name to Nikka. In this new venture he established the Yoichi distillery in Hokkaidō.

Whisky production in Japan began around 1870, but the first commercial production was in 1924, when the country’s first distillery—Yamazaki—opened. Broadly speaking the style of Japanese whisky is more similar to that of Scotch whisky than Bourbon whiskey, and thus the spelling typically follows the Scotch convention (omitting the letter “e”).

There are several companies producing whisky in Japan. Perhaps the two most well known are Suntory and Nikka. Both of these produce blended as well as single malt whiskies.

United Spirits, a division of United Breweries[15]
Amrut Distilleries

The consumption of native distilled molasses based whisky in India is encouraged by tariff barriers that impose a significant markup of up to 52.5% on imported whiskies in India.[9] Imported Scotch whisky bottled under its own brand makes up only 1% of the total market share. The substantial tax markup on imported whiskies has been categorized by the Scotch Whisky Association as “pure protectionism”.[10]

Under Mallya’s direction, United Breweries has been acquiring a number of noted whisky brands and distilleries in Scotland, including Dalmore, Isle of Jura, and Whyte & Mackay.[11] United Breweries has been increasing production at its Scottish facilities, and has moved to double the production of whisky at Invergordon. Vijay Mallya, CEO of the Indian beverage company United Breweries, also sits as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India. Some of the Scotch whisky so produced is used to blend with the Indian molasses whisky.[12]

Indian distillers, by contrast, accuse the European Community of erecting its own sort of trade barriers by means of rules that forbid the marketing of molasses based spirits as “whisky”. Mallya has objected to the EC’s refusal of entry to molasses based whiskies, claiming that the “imposition of British imperialism is unacceptable”.[13] In a lawsuit brought in India by the Scotch Whisky Association, the Delhi High Court enjoined Indian whisky manufacturers from labelling their product with the words “Scot” or “Scotch”.[14]

The drinking of Scotch whisky was introduced into India during the nineteenth century, during the period of the British Raj. Scotch style whisky is the most popular sort of distilled alcoholic beverage in India, though India has traditionally been thought to lack a domestic drinking culture.[3] Whisky, however, has become fashionable for wealthier Indians, and as such the market for whisky among affluent Indians is one of the largest in the world.[4]

90% of the “whisky” consumed in India is molasses based[5], although India has begun to distil whisky from malt and other grains.[6] Brand names of Indian molasses whisky, including “Bagpiper”, “McDowell’s No. 1″[7], and the partially malt based “MaQintosh”[8] suggest that the inspiration behind the Indian whiskies is Scotch whisky, despite these products being chiefly made from molasses.

Indian whisky is a distilled alcoholic beverage that is labelled as “whisky” in India. Much Indian whisky is based on spirits that are distilled from fermented molasses. Outside of India, such a drink would more likely be labelled a rum (some brands can be about 12% malt whisky, with the rest fermented molasses).[1][2]

Black Nikka is a brand of Japanese whisky. It is manufactured by the Nikka company.

Black Nikka is a 37% alcoholic whisky, available at corner stores throughout Japan in 180, 300, 700, 1800, 1920, 2700, and 4000 mL bottles. Individual servings, pre-mixed with soda or water, are also available.

Springbank Single Malt is the most popular variety. Its standard bottling is a 10 year old, distilled two and a half times, and is not chill-filtered, nor does it have colour added. Distilling whisky two and a half times is quite unusual, as it means that during the distillation process some of the low wines are collected before the second distillation, and then mixed back into the feints for another distillation. This means that some parts of the spirit has been through distillation twice and some parts three times. The spirit is then aged in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, although Springbank is experimenting with rum casks as well. The standard 10 year old bottling is available at 46% volume, but a 100° proof bottling (at 57% volume) is also available. They also produce a somewhat darker 15 year old. A 21 year old variety of Springbank exists, but is increasingly rare.
Longrow Single Malt is a highly peaty whisky. The standard Longrow is also a ten year old, matured in ex-bourbon casks, while a Sherrywood 10 year old is also available. There is also an experimental tokaji-cask edition available.
Hazelburn Single Malt, the newest variety, was first distilled in 1997 and since bottled as an 8-year-old. Hazelburn is a triple distilled, non-peated whisky, named for another now-defunct Campbeltown distillery.