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The story
Nikkei reports that the combined market capitalization of four major Western whisky makers — including France’s Pernod Ricard and Britain’s Diageo — has been cut in half over the past three years. The report points to a broader decline in alcohol consumption, especially in the US, with companies scrambling to survive through production cuts, restructuring, and asset sales. But on 5ch, the thread’s attention drifted away from the “struggles of Western giants” and toward how much Japanese favorites like Yamazaki, Hibiki, Hakushu, and Macallan have shot up in price, with posters trading stories like “Macallan 18 went from ¥7,000 to ¥80,000.” The decline in Western consumption and the shortage-driven price surge of popular Japanese labels are actually unrelated phenomena, but the thread tended to blend the two together.
[NEW YORK — Hiroko Nishimura; LONDON — Takako Fujiu] As alcohol consumption declines, particularly in the US, major Western whisky makers are facing hard times. The combined market cap of four Western companies, including France’s Pernod Ricard and Britain’s Diageo, has halved over three years. Each company is searching for a path to survival through production cuts, restructuring, and the sale of business units.
“The wind has changed.” So says Colin Spoelman, co-founder and master distiller of Kings County Distillery, which makes whisky in New York City… (Continues in the paid edition — 1,654 characters remain)
Nikkei, October 7, 2026, 4:59 AM
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
Yoichi, Miyagikyo, and Taketsuru can all be had at or below retail now without any trouble, so if a distillery doesn't have something distinctive going for it, it's gonna be rough.
More than half of them are probably going under.
Whisky fans all over the world are watching the new distilleries.
China's desperately catching up right now too.
The popularity isn't going to fade.
The real question is what the big makers who jacked prices up to rip-off levels are going to do.
About the point where Nakagawa Kiyohide and Takayama Ukon seized Mt. Tenno — the decisive turning point (a pun: "Tenozan" is idiomatic for "the crucial turning point," from the 1582 Battle of Yamazaki)
About when Chono showed up (pro wrestler Masahiro Chono — a non-sequitur joke answer)
Back in the day they said drinking a little now and then was healthy, but current research says even small amounts are toxic.
Whisky for highballs can just be the cheap stuff.
Squeeze some lemon in and you can't tell the taste anyway, and the people drinking it aren't paying attention to the taste either.
Honestly a shochu highball would do just fine lol
Put another way, cheap whisky is only drinkable if you turn it into a highball.
What's Macallan even going for now?
And honestly, whisky should never be allowed to become a boom product.
That's exactly what wrecked Taketsuru and Yamazaki.
The only things that should be allowed to boom are "cheap stuff anyone can mass-produce."
The genuinely good stuff can't keep up with a sudden spike in demand, and it collapses.
Macallan 18 used to go for about ¥7,000, and now it's running around ¥80,000.
The NHK morning drama "Massan" — credit and blame in equal measure (the 2014 series about Nikka's founder that sparked the Japanese whisky boom)
Well, it's a distilled spirit so it has no carbs — guess that's why people on low-carb diets drink it like crazy.
Who's out here worrying about carbs in their booze, a severe diabetic?
Prices have just gone up way too much though.
Even so, I doubt they'll cut prices that drastically for branding reasons.
Once you start discounting, there's no end to it.
They'll probably just quietly dump the excess stock into blended whisky or sell it off to bottlers instead.
Even if you did buy one, you'd probably just end up displaying it instead of drinking it.
Up until about 20 years ago you could get the 12-year for ¥5,000-6,000, but at today's prices it kills any desire to buy.
That's the part to watch going forward.
People who say it's delicious are just putting on airs.
That's just because you only know the cheap stuff.
If you start out with the cheap stuff they sell at convenience stores, you're guaranteed to hate whisky.
Cheap whisky is for people who don't care if it tastes bad, they just want something to drink (basically for alcoholics).
If you actually want to know what whisky tastes like, 12 years aged minimum.
Price-wise, that means at least ¥4,000.
I thought the same thing when I was young.
Once you get older, you start to appreciate how good whisky actually is.
Hakushu, Yamazaki — please drop, get back down to like ¥4,000.
Most Japanese whiskies don't even have much distinctive character anyway.
You're better off drinking Scotch — cheaper and tastier.
Of course the volume of booze being sold is shrinking.
Plenty of them do drink.
There are a lot of secular Muslims out there, not just the fundamentalist ones.
Apparently in Iran, which people assume is super strict, bootleg liquor is a serious social problem.
They're great made strong.
You're saying it's delicious, but the moment you're diluting it with soda water…
Americans who come to Japan tend to love chu-hai (a canned shochu-and-soda cocktail), especially the lemon kind.
Most of that stuff is just expensive without really delivering yet.
Better to wait until the reviews are in before buying.
Though honestly a lot of places are just selling gin as a stopgap until their whisky is ready to sell.
It doesn't need barrel aging, after all.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The Nikkei article at the center of this thread reports that the market capitalization of major Western spirits makers like Pernod Ricard and Diageo has been cut in half over three years, driven largely by a decline in alcohol consumption centered on the US. With health consciousness and declining drinking among younger generations often cited as factors, these companies have been forced into production cuts and divestitures. What actually got the thread fired up, though, was a different issue entirely: Japanese whisky getting too expensive. Many posters shared stories of Yamazaki, Hibiki, Hakushu, and Macallan prices multiplying several times over in just a few years — but that’s a distinctly Japan-specific problem of supply failing to keep up with surging demand, not the same cause as the consumption slump hitting Western majors. It’s worth being careful not to read both stories as a single “whisky industry downturn,” since doing so misses what’s actually going on in each.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Whisky Consumption Slump: Market Cap of Pernod and Other Western Majors Halved, Spurring Industry Realignment.”
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