TOKYO — Kirin Brewery Co on Saturday launched an "Alaskan rock" sales campaign to perk up the consumption of whisky in Japan. Bars serve ice dug up from Alaskan permafrost. Kirin, the distributor of Scotch whisky Chivas Regal in Japan, has contracted for 7 tons of Alaskan permafrost ice from a licensed U.S. dealer.
The ice is being distributed for free to more than 600 bars in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya that are participating in the Kirin campaign, and customers ordering a Chivas in these bars can ask for Alaskan ice to go with their whisky. As sake and other Japanese liquors have been nibbling away at the non-native alcohol market, the consumption of whisky in Japan has reportedly fallen below 100,000 kiloliters a year from a peak of 380,000 kl in 1983.