Last month NHK News On-line reported the following:
ニッカウヰスキー 主力の「竹鶴」の一部 原酒不足で販売終了へ
2020年1月13日 0時01分
国産ウイスキーの人気の高まりで原酒の在庫が不足していることからニッカウヰスキーは、主力商品の「竹鶴」のうち、ラベルに熟成年数が入った３種類のウイスキーの販売をことし３月末で終了することになりました。
ニッカウヰスキーによりますと、販売を終了するのは、「竹鶴」の４種類のうち、「17年」「21年」「25年」とラベルに熟成年数が入った３種類のウイスキーです。
理由について、会社では、このウイスキーの人気が国内だけでなくイギリスやフランスなどヨーロッパで予想以上に高まったことで、長期間の熟成を必要とする原酒の在庫が不足し、供給が追いつかなくなったとしています。
一方、ラベルに熟成年数が入っていない「竹鶴ピュアモルト」については、同じ時期にリニューアルして販売を続けることにしています。
会社では、来年にかけて北海道余市町と仙台市にある蒸留所におよそ65億円を投じて生産設備を２割程度増強し、原酒不足を補いたいとしています。
国産ウイスキーは国内でのハイボールブームや中国など海外での人気の高まりもあり、この10年で出荷量が２倍に増えています。
サントリーやキリンも需要の増加に追いつかず、一部商品の販売を終了したほか、原酒の生産を増やすための設備の増強に取り組んでいます。
サントリーでは、「白州12年」と「響17年」などの販売をすでに休止していて、生産体制を強化するため、去年から滋賀県東近江市にある工場におよそ60億円をかけてウイスキーの原酒を熟成させるための貯蔵庫を増設しています。
キリンでも、主力商品の販売を去年３月で終えていて、去年からおよそ80億円を投じて静岡県御殿場市の蒸留所の設備の増強を図っています。
Translation
Due to the growing popularity of Japanese whiskey, stocks were low for Nikka Whiskey. Regarding its whiskey that had an aging year label sold under the flagship product "Bamboo Crane" (“Taketsuru”), 3 out of the four products would stop sales at the end of March.
According to Nikka Whiskey, the sales going to be stopped were three of the four types of “Bamboo cranes” with the labeled aged-year-number of "17 years", "21 years", and "25 years".
The reason was that the company's popularity in whiskey had grown more than expected not only in Japan but also in Europe such as the United Kingdom and France. This resulted in a shortage of inventories of unblended whisky that required long-term aging and the supply could not keep up.
On the other hand, "Bamboo Crane Pure Malt", which had no age number on the label, would be renewed and continued to be sold at the same time.
The company planned to invest approximately 6.5 billion yen in distilleries in both Yoichi-cho in Hokkaido and in Sendai-city over the next year to increase production facilities by about 20% to compensate for the lack of raw wine.
Due to domestic whiskey highball boom in Japan and increased popularity in overseas countries such as China, the amount of output had doubled in the past 10 years.
Suntory and Kirin also had not been able to keep up with an increase in demand; it had discontinued sales of some products and worked to reinforce equipment to increase raw wine production.
Suntory had already suspended sales of Hakushu 12 years and Hibiki 17 years. In order to strengthen its production system, since last year it spent approximately 6 billion yen on a factory in Higashi-Omi City of Shiga Prefecture to add storage room for the aging of whiskey raw wine.
Kirin also finished selling its main products in March last year, and had spent about 8 billion yen with the intention to reinforce its distillery facilities in Gotemba of Shizuoka Prefecture since last year.
I love Japanese whiskey all along. My feeling is that outside Japan, it is popular globally among the Chinese. Many Chinese from the mainland bought Hibiki 17 years at souvenir shops inside Japanese airports after finishing visiting Japan.
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