Only sort of. Their laws have no jurisdiction outside of Scotland. Except in some cases based on trade agreements, as the wiki says. You could probably distill and sell Scotch in the US if you like. Various state regulators may not give you the necessary licenses to sell but it's probably not illegal.

Except you couldn't call it Scotch due to the name being a protected mark, with most countries, the US included, participants in treaties that protect those marks.

same with Champagne and a few other protected names.

all scotch is whiskey, but not all whiskey is scotch sort of thing.

he is essentially just creating hard liquor with aging characteristics as I see it. He could technically create any new name to differentiate his product and make it more marketable as the other protected names have done.