Whisky of “Lost in Translation”

The movie centers around Bill Murray, who comes to Tokyo to promote the Japanese whisky marketed by Suntory, one of the largest liquor producers in Japan.

As the company’s whisky operation takes over 60 percent of Japan’s market share, Suntory is well known in Japan as we know of Jack Daniel’s in the States. For a large Japanese company like Suntory, it is not unusual to pay multi-million dollars to hire an aging American actor to promote the company’s proud product to the Japanese consumers who are fascinated by the American Hollywood starts.

Whisky, whether domestic or imported, is a very popular drink among Japanese consumers, perhaps even more popular than Sake. The term ‘Sake’ can actually mean all types of alcohol in general.
As you see in Lost in Translation, in Japan alcohol is much more socially accepted and exposed in public compared to the United States; vending machines sell alcohol on the street, whisky advertisements are everywhere and Bill Murray gets lost in translation while making television commercials of the whisky.

Drinking has been a big part of Japanese society for centuries. The history of Japanese whisky-making goes back to the early 20th century. Masatake Taketsuru was the first one to bring the whisky distillation techniques home from Scotland in 1917, after learning the art of blending at the University of Glasgow. He established Nikka company in 1934.