ON A RECENT GETAWAY TO JAPAN, I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO VISIT YAMAZAKI IN PERSON. I don’t think I’d ever have imagined going there and I had to call in support from Japanese folk, just to get me booked on a tour of the place. Yamazaki distillery is said to be the ‘birthplace’ of Japanese Whisky, built by Shinjiro Torii, who in 1923 founded Suntory, which own Hibiki, Yamazaki, Hakushu whisky and a host of other stuff, including beer.
Needless to say, I was very happy to get a tour of the place and pick up my distillery pin-badge. I can’t understand any Japanese, but they happily provided an English audio guide. Although I failed to keep up, it stopped me from staring around blindly at Yamazaki’s production…
After the tour and before I could say otherwise, a Yamazaki 10 yr old with soda water and ice was pressed into my hand. Normally I don’t mix my whisky, but after 35 C and 90% humidity outdoors and beyond roasting in the malt room, I wasn’t bloody complaining…
In the combination of my broken Japanese and better English from the guide, they asked where I came from… I said ‘Scotland’ and the guide all but thanked me as the nation’s representative for teaching Japan how to make whisky…
Yamazaki distillery is a pretty nice set-up, but what I really enjoyed was the whisky library (with several bottle samples from around Japan/Scotland) and, of course, the bar. The library was stuffed full of samples (at least 5ooml I think) of varying bottles ranging from the elusive Ardbeg 30 year old to Macallan to, well pretty much a lot of stuff…Must have been over a thousand bottles, I can’t accurately tell…
The bar, I did an extensive sampling of. I think the count was 11 whiskies in total, but I’m not providing a review of them all.
These are going to be brief notes, although each measure was only 15ml, I was happy, especially since I paid less than £1 in some cases for them (with the most expensive – Yamazaki 18 at £3) and it allowed me to get through a fair few…
Yamazaki 8 Year Old, Cask Strength, 57%. Only available by the dram at the distillery…
Nose: Floral, orange and treacle…
Taste: Spicy yet peated, with some sweet and citrus notes. Definitely some grape and lemon zest.
Finish: Long, fiery and sweet…
In short, that was a bloody good dram, and the best of what Yam had to offer…
Yamazaki 18 year old – winner of various awards etc…
Nose: Again orange/mandarin smell with floral and heather notes. I’m thinking there might be a running theme here…
Taste: Very very very light…Difficult to taste, but sugar and lime seems to be the most prevails. Some honey/floral notes..
Finish: Short, lending to slightly acrid notes…
For being the show-stopper – e.g. San Francisco awards etc, I had hoped for more from the bottle. But sadly, it wasn’t to my taste being far too light for me…
(Trying now – photo below – from right to left – Y’s Puncheon, Sherry and Bourbon casks – all of which are used to form the 12 year old, but can be bought at almost cask strength on their own)…
Yamazaki Puncheon 47%
Puncheon is a type of barrel all unto itself… It’s very difficult to describe it…
Nose: Vanilla, toffee sweetness with a bit of lemongrass
Taste: Heavy lemon initial hit…Yet, some peat, heather and hay…A bloody confusing array of flavours…
Finish: Fiery, acrid yet enjoyably so…
A very odd mix, but I’d be happy to drink through a bottle of it…
Yamazaki Bourbon Cask 47%
Nose: Very light rum-raisin/bourbon style smell. Perhaps some honey and grape. I really need Freddie here for his die-hard cultist worship of bourbon-casked whiskies…Floral notes, a very complex thing…
Taste: Floral, honey, grape. Very light, very difficult to make out. The smell promised so much…
Finish: Oily, grape and slightly sweet lining the mouth…
I think this one was a ‘like it or hate it whisky’…Very unusual…I’ll finish the dram all the same though…
Yamazaki Sherry Cask 47%
This is perhaps where I start to show some of my ‘Sherry’ bias to some whisky…This stuff is close to blood red!
Nose: Rum-raisin, dark chocolate, sherry and Christmas cake…Oh yes…
Taste: Fiery with sherry and chocolate…Pleasant, too easy to drink…Yet, not much in the way of flavour from the cask despite achieving such a dark red colour…
Finish: A lasting burn with bitter grapefruit…
Ok, I’m almost on my 7th whisky now…I’m bloody grateful that the measures are small at this stage that I can get through a lot more…I elected now to go for a straight-up pallet cleanser…
Hakushu Heavily Peated 47%
Nose: So peaty it’s like sniffing dirt. Again Yamazaki’s typical floral and heather notes..
Taste: Almost like a lime-based Laphroaig…It’s the only way I can describe it… Heavily peated, almost salty too…
Finish: Long, smoky and fiery…
Yamazaki distillery “Select” 40%
This one, I’d accidentally already purchased from the shop – thinking that it might be a single cask from the numbering on the bottle…Sometimes, theory fails you…
Needless to say the bottle is labelled “Select”…I must admit, I’m always wary of bottles that say “Select”, “Reserve” etc on them… Because on occasion it realy means, ‘the left-over stuff mixed together’… (However, I do very much enjoy Royal Lochnagar’s Select Reserve, which is far from being left-overs)…
Nose: Peat, floral notes. Tiny amount of honey. Difficult to pick out being that it is a blend of malts (and lacking any age statement)
Taste: Lime, rum and slightly watery
Finish: Short, oily and lime…
I think this one is specifically designed to go well with ice and soda…I might have to include the Japanese test alongside the Spanish (Coke) and Bell’s (Irn Bru) mixes… Needless to say, it is drinkable, and was quite enjoyed by our Swedish member of the Drambusters when I brought the bottle home…
Ok, I can’t properly review any more…On original taste, I found the Hakushu 10 to be quite pleasant, on second taste, not so…
Overall, I think most of the appeal was in visiting the distillery and taking a decent tour. I did enjoy some of the samples such as the cask strength 8 year old… But the ones which I thought would be brilliant – such as the Yamazaki 18 year old and the sherry cask, let me down slightly… It was amazing to visit the distillery and to plough through the drams with glee, but I think that I’ll probably invest in other distilleries first for my cupboard…
M.H.
Yo Aussie!
Sounds like a great tour! I doubt I’ll ever get to Japan, but if I do, it’s on my list. Scotland doesn’t seem so far away after reading this. Then again… Kentucky is even closer. Perhaps there are distillery tours in my future afterall!
Cheers!
G-LO
G-LO, make sure you let us know if you are ever over this neck of the woods. We’ll happily stand you a couple of drams.
Thanks for invite Leggy! If I ever find my way to Scotland, I will definitely look you lads up.
Cheers!
G-LO
I’m surprised and interested that you found grape and rum/raisin flavours in the bourbon cask offering, they’re more usually indicative of sherry cask maturation. Of course, had you brought some of it back for us all to try…
I’ve no explanation for that Freddie….It could be some cross-contamination (e.g. mixed barrel assembly), but I don’t reckon it is…I think it might be purely distinct to the spirit that Yamazaki has….