Speaking to a single malt man on the art of wheeling, dealing and collecting whisky
Eric Huang is a character. A natural showman and brassy storyteller. Hailing from Taiwan, Eric is also one of the most important nodes in the whisky network in Asia, gatekeeper to the few remaining supplies of the exalted aged whisky from Japan, Karuizawa. Distributor, broker, consultant and detective, he is the single malt whisky man in our part of the world. Case in point: he was once asked to find a 1946 Macallan by a rich client who tasted it as a poor youth and wanted to taste it again; Eric obliged and tracked a bottle down for the man, 30 years later.
On discovering whisky
I was doing my Masters in Scotland, in Aberdeen, which is a bloody boring city. There was nothing to do! One of my classmates, a Japanese guy, was a whisky lover. He convinced me to join his whisky trail and took me to my first distillery, Glenfarclas. When I had my first single malt, I was like ‘Wow, this is so good’. I used to think whisky was all the same – I drank it like my father, with Red Bull – but single malts changed my opinion.
On joining the Scotch Malt Whisky Society
I joined the Scotch Malt Whisky Society soon after my first whisky trail, one of only three Taiwanese members. One day the president approached me and said that he was planning to set up a Taiwanese branch. Would I be interested in being a representative? I said yes, but it was tough at first. Taiwanese people love whisky but they did not know how to appreciate it, so I decided to open a bar called SMWS to start educating people.
On discovering Japanese whisky
I discovered Japanese whisky because the Society had good connections with Japanese whisky distillers. The Karuizawa distillery has closed down and Kirin was using it to blend its own whiskies. Such a great whisky as a blend! Terrible! A friend and I started negotiating to buy their stock of 2,000 Karuizawa casks; in the two years it took to seal the deal, another 500 casks were gone! We bought 500 casks eventually, selling 200 more suited for blending back to Kirin. I have been slowly issuing single cask series of Karuizawa since then, and now I have about 40 casks left.
On his whisky collection
My whisky collection numbers about 15,000, of which 10,000 are Scotch and the rest mainly Japanese. I don’t store a lot in Taiwan because of earthquakes; they are mainly in Japan and the UK. I love Laphroaig, for example, so to me I don’t mind if I never sell it, because then I can drink it.
On whisky as an investment
My advice to anyone wanting to collect whisky is first, you must love it. It is a good investment, especially aged whiskies that are getting rare, particularly Japanese ones. You will probably need about US$10,000 to start, or band together with some friends to make group purchases. Watch whisky auctions to identify which brands are popular with connoisseurs, and consider buying barrels from closed distilleries like Littlemill and Port Ellen.
