LIKE English wine, it has suffered from the taint of inauthenticity and has been the butt of condescending jokes. But now Japanese whisky has scotched its critics by being voted the best in the world, ahead of its Scottish rivals.

Yoichi 20-year-old, distilled on the shores of the Sea of Japan, has become the first variety produced outside Scotland to win the coveted single malt award in an international competition run by Whisky Magazine, the industry bible.

The whisky, distilled near Sapporo city, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, beat dozens of other varieties, including last year's winner, Talisker 18-year-old, produced on the Isle of Skye.

Suntory Hibiki, the brand advertised by the washed-up actor played by Bill Murray in the film Lost in Translation, scooped the world's best blended whisky award.

The historic double for Japanese whiskies, once regarded as a joke by connoisseurs, has provoked consternation in Scotland, where whisky - which translates from the Gaelic for “water of life” - is as much a cultural icon as bagpipes, haggis or the kilt.

Yoichi, which sells for up to £150 per bottle, was praised by the judges for its “amazing mix of big smoke and sweet blackcurrant”, “explosive aroma” and “big, long and sweet finish”.

The decision to give the top prize to Yoichi followed a blind tasting of more than 200 of the world's finest varieties by a panel of 16 of the world's leading whisky experts.

The competition was open to every proprietary bottling firm in the world and all the leading brands entered.

The judges said that Japanese distillers had succeeded in toppling Scotch thanks to the more variable climate in Japan, which assists maturation and creates a purer whisky with a heightened aroma.

Traditional distilling techniques such as coal-fired pot stills, which are used widely in Japan but have all but disappeared in Scotland, were also praised for producing a superior Japanese dram.

“Japanese whiskies performed magnificently and they are really starting to make waves,” said Rob Allanson, editor of Whisky Magazine. “Hopefully, this will make people sit up and realise that the Japanese are producing some phenomenal stuff.

“While they don't have a particularly strong toehold in the UK, they are making great gains which the British market should take note of. They are still regarded as quite niche and boutique over here but that could soon change as consumers like the lure of the exotic.”

Dave Broom, the whisky writer who chaired the panel of judges, said that winning the single malt title was an astonishing achievement for the Japanese whisky industry, which was born in the 1920s.

“The quality of spirit coming out of Japan is exceptional, it's an incredible double win for Japanese whiskies,” said Broom.

“Japanese distillers in the past tended to make blends for their own domestic market and didn't export it. They thought Scottish whisky was better and in a very Japanese fashion regarded it as having more honour.

“But when the Japanese domestic market began to decline from the mid-1990s onwards they began specialising in malt and started exporting. As a result, the world has started to catch on that these are whiskies of great quality.”

Broom added that the Japanese weather and traditional distilling technique were the decisive factors in making Yoichi the world's finest single malt.

“There's a real purity of flavour to Japanese whiskies and a more heightened aroma to them and that's what really sets them apart for me,” he said.

“Part of that is down to whisky-making technique and part of it is down to climatic conditions. Scotland is a relatively cool climate so there's a very slow, steady maturation. In Japan, it's extremely hot and humid in the summer so there's much more temperature variation in the year and that has an effect on the whisky maturation.

“Four or five years ago Japanese whisky was hard to get hold of and people had assumptions about it not being good quality. They would say things like, ‘Only the Scots can make whisky.' That has now changed. There is real thirst, in every sense, for Japanese whisky.”

Both Nikka, the company which produces Yoichi, and Suntory are making inroads into UK whisky market.

Nikka shipped around 1,000 cases of whisky to the UK last year, including more than 2,000 bottles of Yoichi. Worldwide, the company notched up sales worth £301m in 2006.

Suntory, which is the dominant company in the Japanese spirits industry, exports about 7,200 bottles of its Hibiki brand to the European market. Last year its sales were worth £7.47billion.

Masataka Taketsuru, the founder of the Nikka whisky company, learnt his trade in Scotland after enrolling as a student of organic chemistry at Glasgow University in 1918.

Taketsuru, who later married a Scot, took jobs at distilleries in Campbeltown and Speyside, where he trained as a blender.

After returning to Japan, he set up the Yoichi distillery on Hokkaido in 1934. The area's clean air and abundant underground water source, which is filtered through a layer of peat, contributed to his eventual success.

Tetsuji Hisamitsu, the chief blender at the Yoichi distillery, said he was honoured to have received the award and paid tribute to Taketsuru, who died in 1979. “Masataka Taketsuru landed in Glasgow in 1918 with an aspiration to develop the best whisky. Ninety years later, the Yoichi malt whisky was honoured. All this makes us feel the weight of time. We are very moved,” he said.

Talisker said: “We are glad that the care, expertise and passion for whisky shown by the distillers of Hokkaido has been recognised. We congratulate them and hope to welcome them at Talisker when they next visit.”

Recently, whisky lovers north of the Border were outraged when the Scots distiller Andrew Currie announced plans for whisky production in England.

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