The distillery was established in 2004 by Ichiro Akuto and was the first of a new generation of Japanese whisky producers to take on the big two, Suntory and Nikka. Shop Ichiro’s Malt Hanyu Ten of Diamonds 1990, £9,950 Chichibu Intergalactic Series Hedonism currently has Ichiro’s Malt Hanyu Ten of Diamonds 21-Year-Old 1990 at £9,950 – less than half the price of the Nine of Diamonds, a 1985 24YO. ![]() It features the full deck of 52 bottlings plus two Jokers – a colour one and the more valuable monochrome version – and some reissues.Īs well as royal cards and aces, diamonds tend to be popular, for the obvious luxury association, and the fact that it’s a ‘lucky’ red colour for the Chinese market. Shop Komagatake Tsunuki Aging 2020 Limited Edition, £210 Ichiro’s Malt Hanyu Ten of Diamonds Ichiro Akuto’s Card seriesĬraft distiller Ichiro Akuto’s Card series comes from the now-closed distillery founded by his grandfather. It’s all orchard and citrus fruit and vanilla flavours, an apple pie and custard treat of a drink. This illustrates Soh’s point about doing things differently – in this instance, distilling at the Alpine Shinshu distillery but ageing at Tsunuki distillery, 1,000km closer to the tropics. That’s only going to get better if aged longer.’įor rarity, it’s best to go for one of the expressions with a vintage, for example Mars Komagatake Tsunuki Aging 2020 Limited Edition. ‘I tasted a three-year-old peated malt that if it were a Scotch, it probably wouldn’t have been very good, but somehow this was fantastic – fruity and balanced with powerful, sweet peat. ‘Mars is very interesting,’ says Hampden-White. ![]() Mars Komagatake Tsunuki Aging 2020 Limited Edition Shop Karuizawa 50 Year Old 1965 Vintage, £35,000 Mars Komagatake Tsunuki Aging 2020 Limited Edition The Whisky Exchange has 50 bottles of this liquid, which has spent half a century in a single sherry butt.Īs you’d expect, it contains multitudes: complex layers of spicy fruit in a rich, dark single malt. Karuizawa 50 Year Old 1965 Vintage is being released drop by drop. Shop Yoichi 1988, £8,000 Karuizawa 50 Year Old 1965 Vintage Karuizawa 50 year old whiskyīecause of its fabled silent distillery status, there is a reverence around Karuizawas, but there is sometimes excitement too, such as around a new release. Yoichi 1988, Cask 100212 has a rich, oily mouthfeel carrying subtle smoke and maritime hints among the fruit and herbs. Then there’s the confusion of coffee drinkers on tasting the oft-misspelt Coffey grain whisky, with Coffey of course referring to the column still the liquid is produced in. There was a time when it was so scarce, restaurant bartenders were swapping it like prison contraband before it was suddenly easily available again. When it comes to Nikka, the other big player in Japanese whisky, Colin Hampden-White recommends choosing single-cask bottlings. The whisky has notes of sandalwood, spice and an underlying freshness unique to this type of wood.’Įnquire about Yamazaki Tsukuriwake Cask Series, £9,000 Nikka Single Cask Malt Whisky Jass Patel, co-founder of Tomoka Fine + Rare at the Royal Exchange, adds, ‘For me, the stand-out bottle is the mizunara – it grows for 200 years before being turned into casks. These different casks elevate it and demonstrate the versatility.’ Soh says, ‘As a liquid, Yamazaki is phenomenal. The set breaks the components down… peated malt, aged in huge American oak puncheons, Spanish oak and native Japanese mizunara oak. Usually, even in their single malts, different styles of spirit are blended for subtle balance shifts. This limited-edition selection of four bottles is an education in how whiskies are made by Japan’s largest distillery group, Suntory. Shop Shirakawa 1958, £25,000 Yamazaki Tsukuriwake Cask Series Yamazaki collection The Shirakawa 1958 shows off a lost style, where a remarkably long fermentation has led to a vibrant tropical cacophany of flavour notes. But, for once, an old whisky is not about the lengthy wood effect. Tomatin, the Scotch distillery has distributed 1,500 bottles of the historical snapshot. In 2019, an untouched tank of whisky distilled in 1958 was discovered. Between 19, Shirakawa was one of the first Japanese distilleries to produce single malts, but it was meant for blends, so after only a few years, cask-aging would be halted and the whisky would be stored in neutral containers – ceramic vats, then stainless steel tanks.
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