Origin: Japan
Type: Single Malt Japanese Whisky
Strength: 43%ABV
Ageing casks: Ex Spanish and Mizunara oak with others
Chillfiltered: No
Added colouring: No
Owner: Suntory
Average price: € 500.00
Official website: www.suntory.com/factory/yamazaki
Vote: 86/100
Yamazaki is THE Japanese whisky, not in the sense that it is the best (I’d be careful not to make such a statement!) but as the first distillery to open the single malt route in the Land of the Rising Sun exactly 101 years ago, in 1923.
The story is pretty well known, Shinjirō Torii instructed Taketsuru Masataka, who had toured Scotland learning all about scotch production, to create Japan’s first single malt, taking advantage of the great passion the population had developed for the European spirit. And so in 1923, Yamazaki, the first whisky distillery of the Suntory group, was born, from which Masataka would shortly afterwards separate to go and found Nikka, giving birth to the two big names in the industry in Japan.
Since then, several labels have sprung up under the Suntory umbrella, but clearly Yamazaki has maintained a privileged place in production, participating together with the other distillery Hakushu (born exactly fifty years later) in the first century celebrations.
It’s in 2024 (so actually one year after the centenary) that two special editions, called Story of the Distillery 2024 (implying there will be more?), came out for Hakushu and for Yamazaki, and it’s the latter that I am trying today.
In keeping with Japanese tradition, neither the age nor the exact composition of the casks is known, except that the deck includes Spanish and Mizunara casks, but then again, that’s nerdy stuff, we’re interested in drinking.
Tasting Notes
The nose is full and sinuous, with warm notes of wax and honey, ripe fruit (peach, apricot, pear, tarocco orange), coconut bar, candied cedar, glazed wood and a slight spiciness of cinnamon and nutmeg. The aromas are intense and defined, deep, with a vegetal background of hay and flowers giving three-dimensionality. On the length, nuts (pecans, almonds), wet leaves and a slight coffee note emerge. Elegant.
On the palate, only part of the olfactory elegance is to be found, being more vegetal with a greater incidence of spices (adding black pepper and a touch of ginger) over the warm and soft part of wax and pastry, here clearly in the background. Fruit is present in candied form, with citrus fruit rising in tone along with nuts and cedar wood, leaving coffee, a mineral vein and a faint puff of smoke in the background.
The finish is of medium length with white fruit, vegetal and mineral notes, wood and again a hint of smoke.
Spectacular on the nose, a little (much) less so on the palate where it retains the elements but with less depth, also confirmed in the finish that lasts less than it should. Still, it remains a high level dram but one that, as in school, could try harder (especially considering the price).