Several years ago, Jeremy Kasler had a moment. Kasler ran Art Futures, an art investment business in Hong Kong sourcing valuable pieces from semi-famous artists for investors. Kasler had noticed a new trend among his clients: they wanted to invest in whiskey, which was weird, since he worked exclusively in fine art. When he sold Art Futures in 2019, Kasler looked into a similar business model for investing in whiskey. Turns out, there’s a market for high end investments in valuable spirits and Cask X was born. Starting in Sydney in 2021, Cask X opened their second office in Hong Kong, and now have a third office in Los Angeles. Cask X recently acquired an allocation of barrels from Jackson Purchase Distillery, bourbon made by Master Distiller Craig Beam. Yeah, that Beam.
What whiskey first made you say fuck yeah?
The first time that I was fortunate enough to taste a really good whiskey—I won’t say scotch, because it was Japanese—I was about 19, and my friend’s parents had gone away for the weekend, and as you can imagine, we were in the fortunate position of being able to raid his father’s whiskey cabinet. So we conducted our own little whiskey tasting, and we all agreed that amongst the sort of eight or ten whiskies that we tried, that the Japanese whiskey was the best at the time.
If you weren’t selling whiskey casks, you’d probably be . . .
I would love to be an astronomer. I’ve always had the unbelievable respect for people in a field where, you know, they could be looking for a black hole for 20 years, 30 years. They go to work every day and in the spirit of progress for the human race they’re trying to find things they may never find in their lifetime. And yet they still keep going and keep on with it. Whereas, you know, what I do is very immediate: create some barrels. We get immediate gratification. But I’ve also a lot of respect for people in that field where it’s kind of for the greater good, and they don’t get that immediate gratification everything.
What’s a fucked up way you drink whiskey you probably wouldn’t tell anyone if you weren’t filling out this questionnaire?
Something the Spanish would almost call a carajilio which is an espresso with a Spanish brandy—but I have it with Scotch.
What’s a fucked up way someone you know drinks whiskey that makes you want to throw them off a cliff, and seriously, Jesus Hashtag Christ, why, Darryl? Why?
I think the worst thing I’ve seen was actually beer. I was in a city in China. It was a Friday evening. Everyone had just finished work. I walked into this establishment, It was like a restaurant bar, and people in their suits with their briefcases were literally falling over drunk. They were all drinking whiskey. It was a really bizarre scenario. And then I walked out of the place, and it was back to perfect normality.
What song will get you onto the floor no matter what?
Besides finding casks, what do you do right?
I’m really good at Backgammon.
Sum up the essence of great whiskey with a single word.
Countryside.
What moment during your process strikes you as perfect?
There is a moment, and it’s an actual moment, that I really, really enjoy. It makes the whole process worthwhile: when we bring our clients to the distillery that they’ve invested in, and they become become part of the process. They help stir the corn. They meet the master distiller. But it’s that one moment when they look up and they see their barrels piled piled high in the rickhouse. That’s when it becomes kind of very real. And you can see that, you know, the cheeks get a bit rosy and pupils dilate. It’s a real moment for them, because, you know, we might have spent months talking about sending emails, talking about whiskey, and what a great distillery it is, and all these wonderful reasons why it’s nice to invest into something you love. But it’s not until they actually see those wooden casks piled high that they realize this something real.
Name the single most underrated or overlooked whiskey you’ve found.
Jackson purchase, out in West Kentucky in Hickman County. The master distiller is Craig Beam, who you probably guessed by the name is a multi, multi, multi generational master distiller. His father’s in the Kentucky Distillers Hall of Fame. So is his grandfather.
What are you reading?
Raging Bull by Jake LaMotta.
