Nonjatta

A decade writing about Japanese whisky

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 21:19:00 +0000

I set up Nonjatta in 2007 after a chance encounter with a bottle of Japanese whisky in a supermarket outside Tokyo. I'm now mothballing the site.

Nonjatta and the projects springing from it have been covered by media organisations including the Guardian, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, El Globo and many others. We've been nominated for the James Beard Award. We've published three great books that have been translated into three languages. We've played our part in telling the story of Japanese whisky.

But it's time to call it a day. All the content will stay up and you can still contact us, but we're moving on to new projects.

Nonjatta wasn't particularly pioneering. There was some really useful information online about Japanese whisky before I first posted in 2007. I remember Serge Valentin's Whiskyfun.com website being a particular inspiration, Takeshi Mogi's site (gone but not forgotten) was a great source in the early days, and writers like Dave Broom were already well aware of Japanese whisky's virtues. Japan's distilleries were already making a habit of winning international competitions.

But Nonjatta filled in detailed background and was written by enthusiasts who were living in Japan and who were enjoying its thriving scene. We are proud of what we contributed and we want to thank all our readers for their contributions, interest and support. We've been quite a hive of activity:

In 2017, Stefan Van Eycken, the driving force behind Nonjatta after I left Japan in 2011 who took the site to new heights, published 'Whisky Rising', a definitive guide to the subject that has been translated into Chinese and Japanese. He has contributed extensively to the whisky press and is the innovator behind the charity event Spirits for Small Change and the Ghost series bottlings, among many other things.

In 2011, I published 'Drinking Japan', which I have bored everybody rigid claiming it was the first comprehensive guide to Japanese alcohol in English. The point of the book was to convince readers that Japanese alcohol culture ≠ sake (and Japanese spirits ≠ whisky.) It told the stories of sake, shochu, Japanese whisky, awamori, Japanese wine, Japanese beer, and an extraordinary bar scene. It came second in its category of the Gourmand Awards, the world cookbook awards,(and top among English-language guides) and was republished in an updated edition in French in 2014.

This year, Stephen Lyman and I were nominated for a James Beard Award for our sequel to 'Drinking Japan', "The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks". We were up against Jancis Robinson, Hugh Johnson and Oz Clarke in the final and lost out to the 'World Atlas of Wine.' We both felt it was a great honour. Stephen has completely overhauled what I wrote in Drinking Japan and I think 'The Complete Guide' is an essential read if you want to understand Japanese alcohol.

When I first posted on Nonjatta, there were no books in English devoted to the broad acres of Japanese alcohol beyond sake. Now we are almost spoiled for choice. I want to mention Brian Ashcraft's Japanese Whisky, published in 2018, David Broom's "The Way of Whisky," published in 2017, and Chris Pellegrini's "Shochu Handbook", published in 2014. They are all excellent books, there have been other great contributions, and I know there are more in the works. It is very exciting.

In the meantime, I am going to try over the next few weeks to make it a bit easier to browse Nonjatta's more than 800 posts (spread over three days short of exactly a decade, from 5 April 2007 to 2 April 2017). Thanks to Stefan and all of the other people who made this site a joy to maintain (including N.N., who did so much behind the scenes). I think it was worth doing.

By Chris Bunting

Twitter @Chris_Bunting

“Whisky Rising – the Definitive Guide to the Finest Distillers and Whiskies from Japan” Available Now

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 02 Apr 2017 08:30:00 +0000

We don’t like to blow our own horn, so we’ll keep this brief. On April 4, the most in-depth book on Japanese whisky ever attempted in any language (this one happens to be in English) will go on sale. Published by Cider Mill Press and written by our head honcho, Stefan Van Eycken, it’s 400 pages chock-full of information with new insights and data on almost every page. The result of more than a decade and a half of immersion in the Japanese whisky scene and based on archival research and countless hours of interviews with distillers past and present, this beautiful full-colour book is available from the usual suspects (online bookstores and the better bookstores in your neighbourhood) for 35 USD or less, depending on where you look.

The day it is launched our head honcho will be lounging on a beach in Italy somewhere, but we grant him his well-deserved vacation after putting this together in between the soup and the potatoes, as they say (i.e. between his full-time job, family commitments and other writing work) in the course of 2016. We’re not going to tell you what’s in it… we don’t want to spoil the surprise. Suffice it to say that everything you ever wanted to know about Japanese whisky (but were afraid to ask?) is in this book. Please join us in congratulating Stefan and spread the word!

Historic Auction of Mammoth Karuizawa Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 13:27:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Whisky fans with a penchant for fine Karuizawas may want to look into raising their credit limit in preparation for a historic auction that will be run by the folks over at Whisky Auctioneer the first half of April.

With almost 300 bottlings offered as individual lots, this is – as far as we know – the biggest collection of Karuizawas ever offered at auction. It covers the whole spectrum from the 60s (12 single casks), 70s (30 bottlings), the Golden Age from 1980 to 1984 (99 single casks) through the second half of the 80s, the 90s and up to the final vintage, 2000. It also includes a selection of official bottlings, some of which were only available at the Distillery shop.

It’s not a complete collection, but with Karuizawa that is not in the realm of possibilities. Many casks were bottled in small batches for sale at the distillery, when it was open to visitors. The staff would just take a few litres off different casks, pour it in bottles (literally by hand – I’ve seen this being done!), hand-label the bottles and put them in the shop. These “distillery-exclusive” bottles came in 700ml and 250ml. When stock of a given vintage was getting low at the shop, they would just take some more off the cask or, if it was empty, find another cask. Mercian also had a program in place for a while where people could mail order a bottle or two from a particular vintage. Some of these bottles show up at auction in Japan from time to time, but most of them were just … opened and drunk – as people were want to do in those days. This all goes to explain why a “complete” collection is just not something that can ever be accomplished.

This offering includes the 1960 (#5127), 1963 (#5132) and 1964 (#3603), but not the 1965 trio (2 single casks and a third one that’s a vatting of the two) recently released by La Maison du Whisky. Presumably, this collection was transferred to Whisky Auctioneer before that release. It does include some of the rarest of the rare though: the Founders’ Cask (1981/2012, #2084) which was never publicly available, the Sakura cask for Germany (#158, ltd. 45 bottles), the 1983 Geisha for Taiwan (#8333, ltd. 68 bottles), a 1991 for Taiwan (#259, ltd. 85 bottles), our very own Ghost No.2 (Rouge Cask, 1995, #5022, ltd. 22 bottles)

This auction presents a rare opportunity for long-time collectors of Karuizawa to fill some holes in their collection, as well as a chance for those who got to the party late and weren’t able to snatch some bottles when they were still available at normal prices from retailers, to pick up a glory or two to open on a special occasion. The auction will run online at www.whiskyauctioneer.com as individual lots from 5th to 17th April. I’ve got my eyes on a few lots, but I’m not telling you which, of course…

Forever Changed: the SMWS Japan Branch Changes Hands

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Mar 2017 10:30:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

From April 1st – and this is not a premature April’s Fool joke, unfortunately – the Japanese branch of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) will be run by a new company. On that day, 16 years of nurturing by the incomparable Whisk-e team will come to an end. If this seems like “just one of those things”, a simple changing of the guard, we can you assure you it’s not. It will not only have an impact on the SMWS members in Japan but also affect lovers of quality Japanese whisky around the world, which is the main reason why we’re mentioning this here, as much as we hate to be the bearers of bad news.

As most of you will know, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society was founded in 1983 in Edinburgh by Philip (Pip) Hills and a group of friends keen to share their love for single cask whiskies. In 2004, the Society was purchased by Glenmorangie. Contrary to expectations at the time, they didn’t meddle with the ethos of the Society. In March 2015, Glenmorangie sold the Society to a small group of private investors. For the first year and a half, little seemed to be changing “on the ground”, but recent developments indicate a change of strategy and a reinterpretation of the ethos behind the Society.

The Society is a membership organization with branches all over the world. In recent months, many members expressed their surprise at the fact that SMWS bottlings are now available in e.g. certain Duty Free shops in East Asia… available meaning: to anyone and everyone. Needless to say, this rubbed paying members the wrong way.

A more recent development is the makeover of the bottle and label design. Aside from the highlighting of the age, the new design introduces 12 colour codes (on the caps and label), corresponding to “one of the Society’s flavour camps”. Examples are: Young & Sprightly, Old & Dignified, Heavily Peated and so on. Whilst this is supposedly meant to spotlight flavour, this pigeonholing seems to fly in the face of the irreducible multitude and plurality of flavours in any given bottling and the individuality of each bottling, which is what most Society members I know (both in Japan, in Scotland and elsewhere in the world) love about the bottlings. It may seem like splitting hairs – after all, you could say: just ignore the colours – but it is indicative… indicative of a move towards a more easily and more widely marketable product, in the interest of boosting (overseas) sales.

The move by the new owners of the SMWS to try and establish their own company in the different international markets is another indication that the vision and ethos is changing. In Japan, this new company will be called “SMWS Japan KK”. It also means the end of an era, as said above: the end of 16 years during which the Whisk-e team built up the Japan branch of the Society, not only in terms of membership and buzz in the whisky world here, but also – and this is significant – in terms of having played a crucial role in adding no fewer than 10 Japanese codes to the Society’s roster of distilleries: 116 (Yoichi), 119 (Yamazaki), 120 (Hakushu), 124 (Miyagikyo), 130 (Chichibu), 131 (Hanyu), 132 (Karuizawa), G11 (Nikka Coffey Grain), G12 (Nikka Coffey Malt) and G13 (Chita).

This was possible because of the close ties that the staff at Whisk-e have cultivated with the Japanese whisky community, built up over years of running Whisky Magazine Japan, Whisky Live Tokyo, the Tokyo International Bar Show, the World Whiskies Awards and so on. Getting a distillery added to the roster of the Society is one thing, but then getting bottlings organized is a whole ’nother story. It’s not just logistically hard (seeing as cask samples have to be approved by the panel in Scotland and, then, when approved, the liquid has to be sent to Scotland for bottling there) but at a time when Suntory and Nikka are no longer doing single cask bottlings themselves prying a cask or two out of their hands for bottling by someone else is a truly herculean undertaking. Getting some Hanyu and Karuizawa bottled for the SMWS was hard but doable because of the close connection between Whisk-e and Number One Drinks. The most incredible thing about Whisk-e’s unrelenting efforts to get a few jewels from the Japanese producers for the SMWS – and people who have tried the bottlings will agree they were liquid gold, without exception – is that they weren’t doing it for the money. Indeed, the 6 Karuizawa releases, to spotlight just one set, could have all been sold for much, much more money through different channels.

We had written in publications left and right about how the only way to get hold of single cask Japanese whisky for the foreseeable future was through the SMWS. Now, with Whisk-e elbowed out of the picture, that possibility has vanished into thin air, too. I’d love to be proved wrong, but I doubt that we will see any Japanese whiskies in emerald green bottles for years to come.

To end on a more positive note: speaking on behalf of the Nonjatta community, I’d like to thank the team at Whisk-e for their efforts in getting all those superb Japanese whiskies out to various corners of the world though the SMWS. I’m sure that anyone who has ever had the pleasure of tasting one of the drams they had a hand in getting bottled for the Society would be happy to join me in applauding and thanking them for their dedication and vision.

In response to the above post, the folks at the headquarters of the SMWS wanted to respond to some of the points that were made. Nonjatta has always been an open and transparent forum for discussions so we are happy to include the response of SMWS Director Kai Ivalo here. We look forward to re-evaluating both our above post and the response below in a year or two.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is, and always has been, about sharing our passion for single cask whiskies with members and their friends and guests. The Society started in 1983 when a group of friends in Edinburgh began sharing their passion for single cask whisky. Over the following 34 years the Society has evolved and we are extremely proud that the Society has grown from its roots in Edinburgh to attract more enthusiasts to join our club and form an active community of members around the world, including Japan.

Our team in Edinburgh, based at our spiritual home The Vaults in Leith, remains absolutely committed to that ethos of sharing the Society single cask experience. Our new owners, who include Society members and whisky enthusiasts mainly from Edinburgh, are also committed to upholding this ethos together with our long-serving operational team at The Vaults – a group of workmates who between them share more than 65 years’ experience at the Society.

Their enthusiasm for the Society, along with their contacts, credentials and financial backing, has provided the platform for us to buy a wider selection of single casks and look at how to develop the Society experience for members around the world. Part of this involves listening to feedback from members. We have also been reviewing the best approach to delivering the Society experience in a particular country.

With regard to Japan, we’re very grateful for the work done on behalf of the Society by Whisk-e and their predecessor and are committed to investing and building on their success to take the Society experience to the next level. This change brings numerous benefits for Society members in Japan, which we communicated to them in February along with an invitation to contact us with any questions (see www.smws.com/japan).

As we are buying more casks than ever for our members, Outturns will be more extensive and offer a greater variety of whiskies; more Society tasting events will be staged; more partner bars will be established allowing members to find Society whisky in more cities; our website is being improved to make accessing whisky easier than ever and is featuring more content; and members will receive copies of our magazine Unfiltered.

For fans of single cask Japanese whisky around the world, we remain committed to sourcing single casks, just as we have done since we helped to bring Japanese whisky to prominence when we bottled our first cask of Japanese whisky in 2002. This is of course subject to availability – it is a widely-known fact that stocks of Japanese whisky are extremely scarce thanks to a surge in demand in recent years. Using our network of contacts, discussions with producers are ongoing, just as they are with producers of whiskies across the world as we seek to unearth the world’s widest selection of single casks.

Meantime, our ethos of sharing the Society experience continues; a small selection of our whiskies has been available at non-member prices in Duty Free at Singapore’s Changi airport and Hong Kong airport to help introduce the Society and encourage whisky enthusiasts to discover the Society experience for themselves.

To help members explore the full spectrum of our bottlings and highlight our unique and well-received flavour profiling system we have also recently introduced a new label design. This new-look is built on the cornerstone of the Society philosophy that we focus on the flavours of a cask rather than the distillery it comes from. Our evocative bottle names and Tasting Notes remain as fun and unconventional as ever.

If this helps members better explore the kaleidoscope of flavours in our bottlings and more like-minded enthusiasts discover the joys of single casks and the Society experience, we’ll be delighted and welcome them to the club with open arms. The Society is an experience to be shared; we are not, and never have been, an elitist club.

I’ve been part of the Society for more than 12 years and have seen it evolve and as a whisky enthusiast I believe there has never been a more exciting time to be a member.

Slainte
Kai Ivalo, Director

‘Spirits for Small Change’ (2nd edition) raises over 9m yen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 05:05:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

‘Spirits for Small Change’ has just announced the results of the second edition of their bi-annual charity event.

The second edition raised a total of 9,146,564 yen (roughly 76,000EUR / 80,000USD), which was donated in its entirety to Bridge for Smile, a non-profit organization active all over Japan that seeks to provide underprivileged children on the verge of adulthood with the support they need to start independent lives. Part of the money raised by Spirits for Small Change will be used to aid children affected by the 2016 earthquake in Kumamoto.

From left to right: David Croll (Whisk-e), Stefan Van Eycken & Scott van Leenen (Spirits for Small Change), Shin Araya (BrewDog Japan) and Atsushi Kamata (Bridge for Smile)

‘Spirits for Small Change’ was founded in 2014 by yours truly, and is run together with Scott van Leenen. The second edition revolved around two special bottlings – a superb 19yo Arran single cask and a more limited vatting of Hanyu and Chichibu malt provided by Ichiro Akuto (Venture Whisky). We wish to thank Isle of Arran Distillers and Whisk-e, their Japanese importer, as well as Ichiro Akuto and Number One Drinks for making these bottlings possible.

But many more kind folk were involved and we wish to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the second edition of this charity event: Whisk-e for their continued structural support, the many companies and individuals who kindly contributed bottles to the charity event (see below), Mark Watt and everyone at Cadenheads for creating another fabulous one-off bottling for the event, the staff at BrewDog Roppongi and Malt City for taking care of the practicalities surrounding the event, and everyone who showed their support by attending the event, buying / bidding on one of the charity bottles or sending us kind words of encouragement. It means a lot to us and to the children who benefit from the work of Bridge for Smile.

Structural support for “Spirits for Small Change” is provided by:
BrewDog Japan, Whisk-e and Number One Drinks Co.

“Spirits for Small Change” gratefully acknowledges the liquid support of (in alphabetical order):
Archives (The Netherlands), Bar Agricole (U.S.), Bar Zoetrope (Japan), Cadenheads (Scotland), Club Qing (Hong Kong), ePower (Japan), La Maison du Whisky (France), Magnus Fagerstrom (Sweden), Liquors Hasegawa (Japan), Heinz-Jorg Konigs (Germany), The Mash Tun (Japan), Malt Bar South Park (Japan), Malts of Scotland (Germany), Mr. and Mrs. Nakajima (Japan), Hasse Peters (Sweden), Sansibar (Germany), Venture Whisky (Japan), The Whisky Exchange (U.K.), Stefan Wieschollek (Germany)

A Labour of Love: a chat with Dr Bill Lumsden

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 07:23:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Last week, Dr Bill Lumsden made a little stop-over in Tokyo to introduce the eagerly-awaited 8th release in Glenmorangie’s award-winning Private Edition range, ‘Bacalta’, which was matured in ex-bourbon casks and then finished in bespoke ex-Madeira casks. Keen to pick up where we left off a year and a half ago (see here), we were thrilled Dr Lumsden managed to find time in his grueling schedule to sit down and chat about his latest baby… and other matters arising. We started by asking him about his relationship with the island of Madeira and its fortified wines.

It goes back a long way. It started off with the Glenmorangie Madeira Wood Finish (1995) where I was buying a range of casks from a number of suppliers. But, you know, to be honest, I was kind of suspicious about the pedigree of them. It was impossible to get the numbers I wanted with defined noble grape variety wines [Malvasia, Boal, Verdelho and Sercial (from sweetest to driest), ed.] I suspected that some of them had just chucked in a bucket of your Tinta Negra Mole, the indigenous one, and eventually I thought: I can’t continue with this – it’s not consistent. So I went out to the island of Madeira for the first time. This was around 1999. I’ve been three times now. As you know, it’s a popular holiday destination, particularly for older people in the U.K. It’s very warm all year round and it’s very lush and tropical. But the first time, I attempted to get into bed with John Cossart of Henriques & Henriques. Sadly, John is no longer with us. But it just wasn’t going to be feasible to do what we needed, not least because the wines hate wood. So I would be having very expensive new casks made, shipped out to Madeira, and John Cossart would have boiled up an ammonia solution to strip all the woodiness out so it was just a container, and I thought: I am not spending all that money on new casks to have them treated like that. I couldn’t help but think that that treatment wouldn’t be good for his wine or my whisky. So the whole thing just died a death, and that’s why I developed Nectar d’Or to replace that. But, you know, it kind of rankled with me a bit, but I’ll come back to that when we talk about Bacalta.

A little anedoctal tale – I mentioned the late John Cossart. He was a tricky gentleman, John – a very particular gentleman. When we were out there – for the two days I was with him – I was out there with our finance director and Willie Taylor from Speyside Cooperage, he took us to all his different locations on the island. And he was always complaining about the work ethic of the madeiranese people, insinuating they were lazy. And we were up in one of his highest wineries, up a wee windy road, and we’re coming back down around a bend and he suddenly screeched the car to a halt and there was a group of Madeira navis working on the road. And he said: “Look at that, just what I was telling you, there’s twelve of them – one person working and the other eleven doing the square root of fuck-all.”

The second time I was on the island of Madeira I went for a little holiday. You know, it was a great holiday, but I have to say, one week was enough, cause I’d seen everything that there was to see, visited a number of vineyards, went to the botanical gardens, bla bla bla, and also it made me feel quite good, because my wife and I were about the youngest couple there. (It’s very popular with retirees.) So that was the second time.

And the third time was at the tail end of this project. But you know, it’s a lovely little place, and I possibly will go back again at some stage. It’s a good place to go from the U.K. because during the wintertime you are almost guaranteed good weather with its proximity to Africa.

You mentioned the Glenmorangie Madeira Wood Finish, which was released in 1995. How is the new Private Edition, Bacalta, different from that?

There was tremendous variability with the old Madeira Wood Finish, and when it was on song, it was my favourite of the old wood finishes, but you know, if it was on song even 50% of the time, I would be surprised, so when I discontinued it, it kind of rankled with me a little bit. It annoyed me that I basically had failed and failure is just not an option.

What sort of casks did you use for that back then?

It was a whole variety of old traditional drums – so, you know, 650-litre monsters. There were some kind of 500-odd-litre butts, which I very strongly suspected had come from the sherry industry. And then, towards the end, there were 225-litre barriques, which had come from the Douro valley that, again, had had a whole hotchpot of different juices inside it. So, you know, it rankled with me so much that I thought, I have to make a good Madeira wood finish before I get fired or retire or whatever. So that was the project which eventually led to Bacalta.

For Bacalta, you wanted to make the “perfect Madeira casks”. What went into making those?

Well, this product is completely bespoke, so I controlled every stage of the process. I reckoned that I wanted American oak rather than European oak, cause there was going to be an oaky influence to it, and I wanted softer flavour notes. So, I basically used the same wood as I use for my Glenmorangie designer casks: tight-grained, sort of 36-month air-seasoned wood but rather than going through the Brown-Forman process [the cooperage in Kentucky, where the bulk of Glenmorangie’s designer casks are made, ed.], I took it over to Scotland and it went to Speyside Cooperage, and they manufactured that into 250-litre hogshead-sized casks. The casks were heavily toasted on the inside, which, of course, immediately was going to cause a problem because of the massive influence to the wine. They were then shipped out to Madeira and a combination of myself and Willie Taylor of Speyside Cooperage, the MD there, managed to persuade the D’Oliveiras brothers to take the casks and season them with their wines. But I knew from the outset that the wines were going to become sacrificial. They had to be discarded because they were just too woody. You know, new, toasted American oak like that is going to have a big impact. So, the casks were seasoned with their sweet wines, Malmsey or Malvasia, for two years and the barrels were stored in the traditional canteiro method, essentially up in the top of the wineries so they get “baked with the sun,” hence the name Bacalta, the Scottish Gaelic word for “baked”. Then, after two years, they were sent back to Scotland. So these projects are very time-consuming – they’re a real labour of love – and very costly: wood from the States to Craigellachie, manufactured into casks, casks from there to Madeira, seasoned and then back to Glenmorangie in Scotland. They came back – and they were very rich when they came back and they had notes of that classic, tangy, sort of oxidized, madeirised character. And I filled them essentially with Glenmorangie Original. Now, the plan was to leave it in for four years, so they were actually slotted in to be Private Edition 10 or 11 in my little mini-pipeline, but you know… we sampled it – myself and Brendan [McCarron], my assistant – every three months, every single cask. And I have to say, for the first 6 months – and this is often the case, and I’d love to understand scientifically why this is – it was the same with the Chateau d’Yquem barriques for [Glenmorangie] Pride [1981] – after 6 months, there was not a lot happening there, and then suddenly … I don’t know if the whisky takes time to leach in and start diffuse out the flavours, but then it started to ramp up in terms of flavour. And after two years and not my planned four years, I thought: right, this has reached that degree of balance. And you know, it’s not something I can describe perfectly in words. It’s not something I can particularly teach Brendan – other than just getting experience – but it gets to a stage where there’s a very harmonious balance of flavours. And the term I use is “very rounded”, so there’s not any spikes of one flavour. It’s just beautifully integrated. And I’ve learned from the past, and I thought, you know, if I leave it in here, there’s a risk I will lose that. So it was bottled and that became Bacalta.

You chose to season the casks for Bacalta with Malmsey (or Malvasia), the sweetest type of Madeira. Did you try the different varieties?

I had already done that with John Cossart and while at that time I was leaning towards Boal – which is the style I prefer for drinking – I thought for this project Malmsey might have the nicest impact on the flavour of the Glenmorangie.

From what you said earlier, it seems like close monitoring is of crucial importance to projects like these.

It is and it makes us deeply unpopular with the warehouse squad at Glenmorangie who are very, very busy anyway, but it’s the only way you can do it. So, the whole thing was as controlled as I could possibly make it. Don’t get me wrong. I sometimes enjoy the spikes in flavour you got with Madeira Wood Finish but, like I said, my goal with this was to try and make the most perfect rounded style I could.

Do you think a full maturation in the sort of cask you developed for Bacalta would work?

It wouldn’t really be what I was looking for, but – you know me – it’s not outwith the realms of possibility that I didn’t fill all of the barrels with mature whisky. Just saying. You know, when I am long gone, I would like Brendan to find all these little nuggets in there. But, you know, I’ve trialed a number of whiskies recently. There was one I used at Whisky Fest in New York two years ago, which was a full maturation in sherry and the cask was about 16 years old at the time. Personally, I hated it, but I asked my audience – and there were about 120 people in the audience – their view on it, and half the audience said it was their favourite whisky that night. And the other half said: no, we don’t like it at all. So you lose the Glemorangie subtlety and elegance when you do that.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you always start with Glenmorangie Original when you do finishes.

Almost always, unless it is something really quite different. And, you know, I like to do that, because we always talk about the Original being the backbone of the range.

I asked because I was wondering if you had ever modified the primary maturation in function of the secondary maturation?

Oh yeah, I’ve done a few bits and pieces like that. And, you know, I can’t say too much more. And sometimes I change the recipe. When I say “essentially [Glenmorangie] Original”, sometimes I’ll be using a higher proportion of refill casks because I am wanting more of the secondary wine to shine through. Other times, I’ll actually move more towards almost 100% first-fill casks because it needs a big, buttery, full-on whisky to stand up to the flavours. So that’s the main way I change it: the ratio of cask types in it.

As you’ve said, “bacalta” means “baked”, and it refers to the canteiro process, where wines are matured in lodges, welcoming the sun’s heat, as opposed to most wines which are matured in cellars. When we talk about whisky and maturation, we tend to focus on the wood rather than the actual conditions in which the whisky is matured, so this seems like a good opportunity to talk about the actual conditions in which different expressions of Glenmorangie are matured.

The only way in which I control that is by putting it in different styles of warehouses. Now, while I am not a hundred percent in favour of this, palletized warehouses are the way forward. You can get more than double the amount of barrels in there for the same cost, so it’s a no-brainer at a time when most of the distilleries in Scotland are running flat out. But you know, I always have a view – and I don’t necessarily have reams of scientific evidence to back this up – that the real sublime whiskies I’ve had from both Glenmorangie and Ardbeg have all come from old-fashioned dunnage warehouses. And for these experiments, they have to go in dunnage warehouses. I’ve actually got one butt-racked warehouse, which we built at Glenmorangie, just because of the volume of Lasanta and Quinta Ruban we’re doing. But these sort of experiments are all going into dunnage warehouses and it’s not even so much just because of the damp conditions being ideal for oxidation but it’s more for practical reasons, that if I am asking for hundreds of samples at regular intervals, the guys have to have easy access to them.

Some whisky fans find it difficult to distinguish between different types of fortified wine finishes. If you had a line-up of, say, Glenmorangie finished in Oloroso sherry, PX sherry, port and madeira, what notes would signal to you which dram corresponds to which finish?

To be honest, if you nosed or tasted it blind, you know, you would be able to pick it out quite easily. So you know, dry Oloroso gives that very distinctive nuttiness and can sometimes have a kind of treacle-y, molasses-type note to it. Pedro Ximenez has loads and loads of sun-dried raisins and chocolate ginger in the flavour. With ruby port – which is what I use, from Oporto, as opposed to older tawnier wines – we get a lot of things like prunes and plums, and chocolate and mint. And then for Madeira, you know, it’s a bit more of a lottery – it’s maybe a bit more difficult to tell and it does depend on the style of wine that goes into it.

Another anecdotal story: today in the office [at MHD in Tokyo], I picked up a bottle of Quinta Ruban, and while personally, I don’t like the new black label cause I don’t think it shows off the colour of the whisky as well as the white one used to do, I was looking approvingly at the colour of the whisky, which was very, very ruby pinkish in nature. But about 8 or 9 years ago, I was noticing that vattings of … it might even have been the old Port Wood Finish then, rather than Quinta Ruban, but vattings were not nearly as pink or vibrantly ruby in colour, and I thought: what’s going on, here? And I was deeply worried about that. I went back to the Dias Cooperage [in Portugal] and it turned out that the late Mario Dias was thinking he was doing me a favour and he was giving me casks which had held better-quality, older, more tawny wines. But I thought: that’s not what I’m looking for at all! I want young, vibrant, very fruity ruby casks. The industry there is moving over from pipes towards barriques. They are easier to handle but you get more maturation potential out of a barrique because of the surface area to volume ratio, and that’s one of the reasons why with Quinta Ruban we’re getting loads and loads of that red colour just now.

Like the other Glenmorangie Private Editions, Bacalta is non-chillfiltered. More and more whisky makers are choosing to bottle their products, including core products, without chillfiltration. What are your views on this?

Generally, I am not hugely in favour of chillfiltration. I do believe that you take something out of the whisky, but if you are going to do it – and we do it for Original and for the 18yo, for example; we also do it for Lasanta, which I am in two minds about – we don’t chill it right down to 2°C like a lot of people do. And we use a looser filter so we’re not taking so much out. And the most beautiful illustration of that was when I did some training for World Duty Free staff at Heathrow two or three years ago, and there’s a couple of guys in the audience that I meet a lot – they run some of their whisky shops and they’re real whisky geeks – and they said: one of the things we love about Glenmorangie Original is it still has that nice texture to it. And you know, if you put a bottle of Original in the fridge, the oils will come out of solution. It will go slightly opaque, but even though we are chill-filtering some of our larger-volume products, we’re doing it in a much more gentle way. You know, I’ve tasted a few whiskies of late – and I’m not going to name any names here [makes a guttural noise starting with M and ending in -n] – and it’s been so heavily chill-filtered that it’s thin in the mouth. You know, the mouthfeel is part of the experience. There should be a real wow-factor there, but if you take too much out… So either don’t do it at all or be very careful with the way in which you do it.

Another hot potato: it’s not uncommon to hear hardcore whisky fans say that older bottlings – by which I mean, expressions released decades ago, i.e. in the 70s or 80s – are “better” than what we have now. As a contemporary whisky-maker that must grate you.

Very much so.

So, I wanted to ask you about continuity, not from one batch to the next or one year to the next, but across decades.

The first thing I would say here is that obviously it’s human nature to look back with rose-tinted spectacles at all aspects of our life. You know, when I was on the plane yesterday, that long flight, and I had been loosened up by one or two glasses of wine, I was looking back to the time when I was a student and things, and thinking: god, it was just so good then. So, there is a tendency to do that.

Back in those days, the single malt Scotch in particular was in much, much smaller quantities, so there was the opportunity, perhaps, for there to be small batches which were very outstanding in nature. But, you know, the other side of the coin was that, back then, there was some fucking awful stuff being bottled and there was massive inconsistency.

So, nowadays, we’ve introduced much more consistency. Now, I don’t think total consistency is a good thing. I like there to be batch-to-batch variation. I think it makes it interesting. But I’ve had one or two groups of people who have honestly compared batches of Ardbeg 10yo – and when I say “honestly”, I mean: they’ve done it blind rather than saying “oh, this is the one from ’97” and then inevitably “oh, it was much better” – and these two groups both came back and voted for the newer releases as their favourite ones. So, I don’t buy into that, that older is better.

In terms of consistency, there is a company called Rare Whisky 101 in Scotland, and one of the partners in that is a good friend of mine, David Robertson. And they carried out a big experiment where they had batches of about 7 or 8 different brands – including Macallan, including Glenlivet, including Johnnie Walker, including Glenmorangie 10yo – where they had managed to get bottlings from … I don’t know if they went back as far as the 60s, but they had 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and now, and Glenmorangie 10yo came out as being absolutely the most consistent over that time period. So, we’ve done a pretty good job with that. But you know, I am sure for every person that says “oh, it tasted much better back then,” they’ve probably had whiskies back then which were terrible but they just don’t remember that, or don’t talk about that.

Moving on to another hotly debated issue among consumers recently, the ever-increasing price of the amber nectar on the market. Do you think we are going to be on that escalator for much longer?

Whisky is not going to come down in price any time soon, but I don’t think it will ramp up dramatically. I think we’re already seeing the impact of two things: firstly, producers no longer being willing to drop their trousers and bow down to the big supermarkets and heavily discount it (and, you know, we’ve gone through that ourselves in the days of Moet-Hennessy). And more and more people are thinking: you know, whisky is a high-value product. It’s a bloody expensive product to make, and it’s an even more expensive product to finance for all these years while you hold the stock. And the second thing is: yeah, we’ve seen an impact of scarcity and rarity, but I’m not at any time just now anticipating a big hike. However, and this is where I might get myself into the soup here (cause we’re not supposed to talk politics), but if the awful Scottish National party manages somehow to have a second independence referendum and the unthinkable happened and Scotland became independent, once they had achieved their goals and realized that the country was totally fucked and bankrupt, then they’re going to have to try and find money from somewhere and the Scotch whisky industry is a huge piece of low-hanging fruit. So, if that was to happen, there is no question the cost of whisky would go up dramatically.

A year and a half ago, we spoke about Project Godisgoode and you said it would be a few more years before we would see the results of that. Well, we’re a few years further. Are we getting close?

In the last month or so, I have actually requested this year’s samples from Project Godisgoode and I will take a view, but you know, my feeling is we are still three to four years away. Now, what I would hate to think might happen is that – and I don’t think I gave you too many details, Stefan – someone else would get in there and beat us to it. And I heard a little whisper, and again this is anecdotal, that Jim McEwan stood up at some tasting event in Islay and said that for the very first time ever in the world of Scotch whisky, a whisky was going to be matured in Chateau d’Yquem wine casks. And somehow, that got back to me, and I thought: bullshit, I had my casks filled three years ago! And that did lead me to release the 21yo Sauternes Wood Finish earlier than I was planning, just because I thought: I’m not letting these bastards steal our thunder. Then I never heard another thing about it. But as far as Project Godisgoode is concerned, we’re still a few years away, I guess is the answer to that.

I’ve also picked up rumours of a project called ‘KGB’. I’m sure you can’t say much about it, but something is better than nothing.

Your sources, Stefan, are very, very good, indeed. I am prepared to say and put my neck on the line – because actually I’ve seen something on the internet last week about it and it wasn’t me that shot my mouth out – but this year’s Ardbeg Day is Project KGB. It’s going to be called ‘Kelpie’. Obviously, we would have struggled to actually call it ‘KGB’, although myself and the former marketing director, we thought it was great and we had a list of things. I guess the best I came up with was ‘Kildalton Grand Bottling’, but the boss – and you know, I understand why, given the current political climate – said: absolutely not. If you were to sit there and ask me: what does a mythical water beast, the Kelpie, have to do with this whisky, I would say to you: absolutely fuck-all.

What is the Russian connection?

I’m not telling you, but you know, you are a smart guy. You can work it out. What would I possibly get from Russia? It’s not vodka. Russia has very large forests and a coopering industry. It’s almost got to the stage with that thing that it’s almost too full-on. Really wow, in-your-face, that style of product. So I’d like to think that for some of the Ardbeg aficionados who have leveled criticism recently – saying some of the Ardbeg Day products have been a little bit lily-livered compared to Alligator, for example – KGB / Kelpie will be even more full-on. So, that’s what that project is.

You’re a very creative fellow, yet you have to work within the constraints of the Scotch Whisky Association regulations. Do you find it stimulating to work within those constraints or do you feel they hamper creativity?

While at times I get tired of having debates… like for Signet, they said they couldn’t allow us to call that “malt whisky,” and I said: yes, it is – high-roast chocolate malt is malted barley. Of course, it is. And I won that one with them. See, sometimes I get a bit wearied by it all, but on balance, it would be a terrible shame if we lost the regulations and it would open the door up for all sorts of nonsense happening, which you see in lots of other categories. And, you know, I’m quite astonished that there are so many flavored brown spirits. Do they actually sell? How many more different flavours can you actually put into it there? And we would see things like that happening. So, definitely, I am in favour of the laws.

If you were in charge of the SWA, which area(s) would you loosen up?

I think the one I might loosen would be allowing distillers to try other types of wood. And, you know, it wouldn’t open the floodgates to all sorts of things happening because a lot of the other wood types which might have a flavour profile would not have tyloses in the internal structure, so your spirit would just leak through them – you couldn’t make barrels out of them. There’s only a few other types of wood you could use. But you know, I tried things like Brazilian cherry [wood] and I got my fingers rapped for that. It was terrible, incidentally. But things like acacia, or walnut, or maple – things like that. It would be quite fun to try that. So that’s the one area I think I would like to see relaxed.

The year that was…

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 09:25:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Best wishes for the new year, folks. It’s an understatement to say that last year has been a quiet year here on Nonjatta, but that doesn’t mean we were sleeping on the job. Far from it.

The main reason for the lack of activity was the fact I was working on my book. Research, traveling and writing literally took up any free time I had for the first half of the year, and then the second half was taken up by the production side of things. That’s behind me now and what a relief it is! The book will be out in March. It’s called “Whisky Rising” and is available for pre-order from the usual suspects (apologies for the shameless plug). In truth, I could have posted some things in the margin of my work on the book, but then I happen to know a few people are working on a book on Japanese whisky so I had to keep some of my powder dry.

The other half of the story – the reason for the lack of posts last year – is that I’ve been doing much more writing for various whisky publications around the world since the beginning of 2016 (mostly for Whisky Magazine in the UK – that’s in English – and for Whisky Magazine Japan – in Japanese). This is payed writing so, obviously, that takes priority. As most of the long-time Nonjatta fans will have noticed by now, Japanese whisky is becoming increasingly hard-to-find and/or expensive. That means writing about it is much more costly, in terms of expenses incurred along the way. Gone are the days when you could pick up rare and interesting bottles any day of the week at ‘normal’ prices. Gone are the days when you could visit a bar and have half a dozen interesting Japanese whiskies for the price of an average dinner. Prices in retail are up. The competition is lethal – every man and his dog now wants a Chichibu single cask when one is released (which is not all that often). Prices on the secondary market are batshit mental. So it’s only natural that prices at bars are higher than what they used to be, too. Collecting Rolex watches is nothing compared with the credit card stress the Japanese whisky hobbyist has to endure, if he wants to stay “in the game”. From a writer’s point of view things aren’t any easier. Japanese whisky producers don’t send samples – they didn’t when there wasn’t much interest in the category of Japanese whisky, at home and abroad, and they don’t need to now that there is more demand than they can satisfy – so pro bono writing (which is what Nonjatta has always been!) is harder on the wallet of the person doing the writing. That’s just the way things are nowadays.

Nonjatta has always been about spreading enthusiasm for Japanese whisky, informing people and helping them find their way to (and into) the liquid. Now that everyone is crazy about Japanese whisky – not only about the liquid, sadly, but also as an “alternative investment”, as it’s usually phrased – it is harder to pursue those lofty ideals. Reviewing whisky with the idea of helping the reader make up their mind whether it is likely to appeal to them so that they can then go out and buy a bottle for their private enjoyment or track one down at a bar is… well, let’s face it, not going to happen anymore. When a single cask bottling or a limited release comes out, it is a mad scramble for crumbs and with a few hundred bottles available it is gone faster than you can say “oh, look there it is at auction for 5 times the retail price”. The result is that, even when you DO manage to get hold of a bottle, this situation leads people to fetishize their bottle. Even those who genuinely buy to drink can’t shake off the feeling that the bottle they were lucky to score is now worth the equivalent of a week’s holiday in Hawaii.

In any case, none of this is news… so we won’t linger on it too much. Asked to single out some highlights of the past year, here are our picks of “best” – whatever that means, we won’t get into that! – Japanese whiskies of 2016:

Best Blended Whisky: Kirin Fuji-sanroku 50° Non-Chillfiltered
Best Single Malt Whisky: Mars “Komagatake” Tsunuki Aging
Best Single Grain Whisky: Fuji Gotemba Small Batch 25yo Single Grain
Best Single Cask Whisky: Chichibu Malt Dream Cask for Bar Kitchen

With the exception of the grain whisky – which is an anomaly, really – these are all young whiskies. The reality is that, for a very long time, we will be drinking very young whisky coming out of Japan. Six new distilleries started producing last year. It will obviously take a while before anything ‘mature’ will come out of the warehouses of those distilleries. Other smaller distilleries – Chichibu, Mars Shinshu and Eigashima – have relatively young stock and can’t splash their older stock about the place too much. They need it for the future and they know that the future lasts a long time. The only ones able to offer a bit more variety in terms of aged stock are the big boys but whether they will remains to be seen. There has been very little coming out of Suntory and Nikka in terms of new, special or limited releases recently. They’ve been replenishing their warehouses for almost a decade now – producing around the clock. It may be that we will reap the fruits of that labour in the years to come. Then again, it may just be that all the stock that has been laid down since the highball boom is needed to satisfy mass demand for their entry-level products – i.e. that there is no space, real or mental, to release small-batch / single cask / limited edition products aimed at whisky enthusiasts.

This is turning into a long post, so we’ll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing, dear reader. We’ll just leave you with a promise to try and return to the level of activity pre-2016 on Nonjatta. The angles may be somewhat different, and posts may be a bit more brief, but we’ll do our best! Here’s to a year filled with better whiskies at better prices! Kanpai!

Fuji Gotemba Distiller’s Select 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 05:06:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

It’s been a pretty bleak few months in Japanese whisky land. There have been a few single cask and limited editions from the Venture Whisky stable but that’s been pretty much it. It’s hard to report on those because they sell out in a split second…

What a thrill it is then to be able to signal a limited release that you can get your hands on and that’s 1) reasonably priced and 2) of superb quality. That said, you will have to make an effort and travel to the distillery. Nothing comes easy these days – not as far as Japanese whisky is concerned.

The release we’re talking about is “Fuji Gotemba Distiller’s Select” and it’s actually a dual release, as so often with the good folk at the distillery there: a single malt and a single grain. The concept behind this release is a very interesting one. At the big companies in Japan, specialized blenders put releases together. That’s their job. At Kirin, there’s a very good team, led by chief blender Jota Tanaka, but for the “Distiller’s Select”, the idea was to have the people who actually make the liquid at the distillery put something together. Several key people on the team created a vatting of their own, which was then tasted blind by the people there, tweaked when necessary and then the “best” one was picked and prepared for bottling.

On a recent visit to the distillery, I had the chance to try the Distiller’s Select bottlings and they’re really beautiful whiskies at a price that can’t be beat at the moment. (They come in two sizes, 500ml and 200ml.) According to the staff, the single grain is the first release to come out of Fuji Gotemba distillery that uses all 3 types of grain whisky made there. It’s made up of 50% light-type grain (column distilled), 49% medium-type grain (made in batches, using the beer column and the kettle) and 1% heavy-type grain (made, like bourbon, using the beer column and the doubler). The average age of the vatting is 6yo, with the oldest component 8yo. Wonderfully lush – with a nice maple syrup note – it’s a real treat. The team settled on a bottling strength of 48%. The original vatting came in at about 60% abv but the team felt it was best presented at 48%. They are very thorough so they tried various strengths and that was the conclusion they came to.

The ‘winning’ malt vatting was composed by stillman Masao Nakamura. Nakamura is a fan of peated whiskies (Islay in particular) so he put a generous dose (a little over 1/3) of peated (5ppm) malt in his creation. It’s just the right amount to give it a beautiful smoky halo without obliterating the other notes. The “Distiller’s Select Malt” was bottled at vatting strength (49%).

The team at the distillery are very proud of this pair and understandably so. The plan is to continue this project with annual follow-ups. As chief distiller Yuichiro Mese pointed out, “this project is not just about selling a new product, it’s also about improving our skills”. If this isn’t the perfect excuse to pay a visit to Fuji Gotemba distillery, I don’t know what is. And even if you’ve been there in the past, the visitor center has undergone an upgrade recently and the tour is better than ever before. Perfect time for a weekend trip.

Ghost 8 & Arran 19yo ‘Spirits for Small Change’ On Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 03:10:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

The two bottlings for the bi-annual charity event “Spirits for Small Change” are available now from Malt City. Keep reading, because there is some ‘fine print’, as they say.

The first event bottling was the 8th release in the ‘Ghost series’, a special vatting of Hanyu and Chichibu, created by Ichiro Akuto and bottled at cask strength. This was limited to 26 bottles. Two bottles were drunk at the charity event (held on July 3rd), one bottle was raffled off, and three were auctioned off live at the event. The price per bottle at the event came to 370,000 yen. The remaining 20 bottles are sold at the same price on Malt City. To avoid people hijacking this release, they are offered guerilla style. In the course of the next seven days, at random moments, the Malt City staff will make one bottle available. This will be done until all 20 bottles are gone. It’s a lot of money but all of the proceeds of the sale of this bottle goes to children’s charities in Japan.

The second event bottling was meant to be more affordable. It’s a 19yo Arran single cask (sherry butt #1579, 1996/2016, 45.2% abv, 175 bottles). Most of the outturn was sold at the event. In fact, people went wild for it. Some even bought a full case! The few remaining cases are offered now, with a limit of 2 bottles per person (price is 15,000 yen per bottle). Part of the proceeds of the sale of this bottle goes to charity.

Ghost 8 is available here and the Arran single cask can be purchased here.

Please do not make enquires to MaltCity about stock condition, release timing, reservation etc.

Oldest Japanese Whisky Released: Saburomaru 1960

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 03:34:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Today, the oldest Japanese whisky to date is officially released: ‘Saburomaru 1960’, a 55yo single malt whisky.

You may be excused for scratching your head and saying “Saburo-what?” Saburomaru is the name of the whisky distillery owned by Wakatsuru Shuzo in Toyama prefecture. They’ve been making whisky since 1952, but only for a few months a year. All the malt they distill is heavily peated. You’ll be able to read much more about this overlooked distillery in my forthcoming book (I apologize but I have to keep some of my powder dry). Wakatsuru Shuzo used to market its whiskies under the ‘Sunshine’ brand. The ‘Saburomaru’ line will be reserved for single malts expressions from now on.

As said, ‘Saburomaru 1960’ is the oldest single malt Japanese whisky ever bottled. It was distilled in May 1960 in an old ‘allospas’ still, imported from France. This is a continuous still, so in Scotland, this would not be a single malt technically, since single malts have to be distilled in pot stills. (In Japan, this doesn’t matter.) It is a vatting of a few casks. All the casks used were ex-red wine casks from Yamanashi from the days when Wakatsuru Shuzo dabbled in ‘port wine’. It’s bottled at vatting strength (47%) and limited to 155 bottles.

The retail price will be 550,000 yen plus tax - which, from a purely objective point of view, is quite reasonable. But don’t get too excited: the company is organizing this as a lottery. For more information (in Japanese!), head on over here.

On a recent visit to the distillery, I had the chance to try this historic whisky... - but that’s for another post!

"Spirits for Small Change" 2nd Edition, July 3rd BrewDog Roppongi

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 May 2016 10:29:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

日本語は以下に続きます (Japanese follows English)

Today, we’re thrilled to be able to announce details of the second edition of the charity event "Spirits for Small Change". The first edition was held in 2014 and raised over 6.5 million yen. All proceeds from the event are donated to charity. This time our partner is "Bridge for Smile" which supports children living in institutional care and helps them live independently after leaving children's homes. We are very happy to be able to support their efforts in a small way with this, the second “Spirits for Small Change” fundraiser.

The event will take place at BrewDog Roppongi in Tokyo on Sunday, July 3rd from 1 to 3pm. In addition to a welcome beer from the BrewDog range and a plate of craft food, participation includes 5 whiskies and/or other spirits, one of which is a special ultra-limited bottling provided by Ichiro Akuto of Venture Whisky. The other four drams can be chosen freely from a wide range of whiskies and other spirits donated by distillers, retailers, bars and collectors worldwide. There will also be a special bottling for 'Spirits for Small Change' (a 19yo Arran single cask) which can be tried and bought at the event. Participation is 5,000 yen and advance registration will include a raffle ticket, giving you the chance to win some really interesting bottles. A few rare collectables will be auctioned off live at the event as well. Space is limited so we strongly recommend you book your ticket in advance. Our friends over at Malt City are taking care of this for us, so head on over to their site!
Structural support for ""Spirits for Small Change"" is provided by: BrewDog Japan, Whisk-e and Number One Drinks Co.

Detailed Information:
Date / 3rd July 2016 13:00 - 15:00
Venue / BrewDog Roppongi
Entry Fee / 5,000 Yen (includes 1 BrewDog beer, a plate of BrewDog food & 5 whiskies)
*Advance entry also includes a raffle ticket, giving you the chance to win some interesting bottles.
Event enquiry : Nonjatta
Ticket enquiry : MaltCity (enquiries@whisk-e.co.jp)

２０１４年に行われたNonjattaのチャリティイベントがこの度、第２回’Spirits for Small Change’として、再び開催する運びとなりました。

皆様から６５０万円を超す寄付金が集まりました前回のイベントですが、今回のチャリティパートナーは、児童擁護施設から社会に巣立つ子供達の自立支援を行なっている団体’Bridge for Smile’です。今回のイベントが、少しでも子供達の’Bridge for Smile’への力となれれば幸いです。

今回のイベントは、7月3日の午後1時から3時に、ブリュードッグ六本木で開催いたします。ウエルカムビールや美味しい料理を提供させていただきますとともに、５杯のウイスキーもしくはスピリッツをお楽しみいただけます。その内の１杯は、Venture Whiskyの肥土さまより提供していただきました、特別な限定ボトルからとなっております。さらに、’Spirits for Small Change’の特別ボトル（アランのシングルカスク１９年）も用意しております。こちらのボトルは本イベントで購入することも可能です。蒸溜所、リテーラー、バー、世界中のコレクターの皆様から寄付されましたボトルも試飲できます。参加費用は５０００円になりますが、前売り券をご購入いただきますと、素敵な賞品の当たる抽選券をお渡しいたします。更にイベント当日には、何本かのコレクタブルなボトルをオークション形式で出品いたします。経費を除く全ての収益金が’Bridge for Smile’へ寄付されます。今回のイベントが開催されます場所には収容人数に限りがございますので、ぜひお早めに前売り券をお買い求め下さい。Malt City様のご協力により、今回のイベントは開催されます。

Spirits for Small Changeは BrewDog Japan, Whisk-e そして Number One Drinks Co.のお力添えにより実現させる事ができました。

イベント情報:

日時 / 2016年7月3日（日）13:00 - 15:00

会場 / ブリュードッグ六本木

参加費 / 5,000円 (ブリュードッグのビール1杯、ブリュードッグ六本木特製フードにウイスキー5杯のテイスティングチケットが含まれます)

※当サイトで前売り券をご購入いただきますと、当日素敵な賞品が当たる抽選券をお渡しいたします。

イベントに関するお問い合わせ : Nonjatta

チケット販売に関するお問い合わせ：MaltCity (enquiries@whisk-e.co.jp)

Fujisanroku 50° Non-Chillfiltered

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 09:14:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

The new one (left) and a mini of the old one (right).

For the past couple of years, the new Japanese whiskies we’ve written about were either gone before we had the chance to post about them or out of reach for most of us in terms of pricing… well, lately, both actually. So, what a thrill it is to introduce a great whisky that a) is 100% made in-house at an actual distillery in Japan (as opposed to containing malt and/or grain sourced ‘elsewhere’); b) is presented without chill-filtration; c) does not take advantage of the craze for Japanese whisky by bumping up the price (it is priced at less than 1,500¥ (13USD/12EUR)) and d) you can get any day of the week anywhere in Japan… so no mad scramble for crumbs, no split-second online ordering, no secondary market frustration. Too good to be true? Well, pinch yourself because it is true.

On 22 March, Kirin launched the renewed ‘Fujisanroku Tarujuku 50°’. But they didn’t just slap a new label on the bottles. In fact, they changed the bottles themselves too. Whereas the old one used to come in 600ml bottles, the new 50°NC – as we will call it, for the sake of convenience – comes in standard 700ml. The recipe has been changed somewhat, too; not to the extent that fans of the old 50° wouldn’t recognize it, but tasted side-by-side, the difference is obvious. The 50°NC is richer and has more depth and complexity to it.

At Fuji Gotemba, in addition to malt whisky, three different types of grain whisky are produced: light (distilled in a column still, as is usual), batch-light (i.e. medium, distilled in a beer column->kettle->rectifying column configuration) and heavy (i.e. bourbon-type, distilled in a beer column and then in a doubler). With the batch-light type picking up some serious awards internationally (‘Blender’s Choice Grain’ was awarded ‘Best Japanese Grain Whisky’ at the WWA2015; ‘Small Batch 25yo’ was named ‘World’s Best Grain Whisky’ a month ago at the WWA2016), the decision was made to feature more of the medium and heavy-type grain whisky, whilst at the same time toning down the peated malt component. Kudos to chief blender Jota Tanaka for the ‘renewal’ of the recipe – it works a treat!

Then, they went a step further and decided to present it un-chillfiltered. It is bottled at 50%abv and this is actually very close to vatting strength. Filling strength (the abv at which new spirit is filled into casks) is unusually low at Fuji Gotemba – 50.5% for malt, 55.5% for heavy-grain and 62.5% for medium- and light-type grain – so when the components are vatted, the strength isn’t far off the 50% mark. Because there is very little dilution involved and because it is bottled higher than most standard whiskies in that price range, the risk of clouding when water or ice is added to a dram (which is the main reason why whiskies are chill-filtered) is very low. Producers who chill-filter their products maintain there is little or no difference. The folks at Kirin ran tests and found that there was a noticeable difference. Maybe in a smoky bar late at night one wouldn’t notice, but in peace and quiet, one would. In the chill-filtered version, the sweet top notes weren’t as bright and it had less body, as well. We applaud the folks at Kirin for pioneering non-chillfiltration at this level and hope that some of the other big boys in the industry will follow suit. Of course, there have been NC releases from other Japanese distillers before, but these were one-offs or special editions. The new ‘Fujisanroku 50°C’ is the first generally and permanently available, entry-level NC Japanese blended whisky that is not chill-filtered. A bold move but one that, we are sure, will pay off. It sure does for us drinkers… the first sip you take, you know!

Now for the bad news… bad for most of our readers who reside abroad. This, like all other Kirin whiskies, is only available in Japan. However, every cloud has a silver lining. We get mail all the time from readers asking us where they can find such-and-such special whiskies to buy and take home… For the past few years, our replies have been along the lines of “mmm, you can’t…” Now we can say, forget about chasing unicorns when you are in Japan… instead, head on over to the nearest supermarket or a liquor store and pick up a few bottles of this. It’s cheap, it’s great, it’s not available back home… and with the time and money you save, there’s plenty of other things you can do. A win-win for everybody.

Chichibu 2011/2016 for Chichibu Whisky Matsuri

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 09:35:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

The third edition of the Chichibu Whisky Matsuri saw a record number of 3,300 people flocking to the area. It’s fast becoming one of the most popular whisky festivals in Japan, and every year there’s a special single cask bottling (Chichibu, of course) for the festival, which is obviously an extra motivating factor. With 10 times as many people as bottles available, it’s organized as a lottery, which is fair… In the current Japanese whisky climate, those are still pretty good odds, 1 out of 10.

Last year’s release was one of our favourite Chichibu single casks to date (2011/2015, #3292, matured in an Imperial stout barrel). Let’s see what this year’s release is like.

Chichibu 2011/2016 (#1431, mizunara heads hogshead, 61%, 282btls.)

On the nose, the initial impressions are: sour apples, lemon meringue pie, kocha (tea) umeshu and baklava. It’s slightly mineral – even a bit maritime – and there are subtle hints of wood smoke, as well.

On the palate, it’s quite fiery. You get the same round sour notes hinted at by the nose – this time more akin to underripe plums and grapefruit sorbet –, together with a gentle sweetness (yoghurt candy, pancakes with honey), grape seeds and some white pepper. After a while, and with a few drops of water, there’s a suggestion of dried apple mango.

The finish is long on rhubarb jam and fukinoto (butterbur sprout) tempura. Something amazing happens if you take a sip of water afterwards: in the retro-olfaction you then get chocolate mousse with espresso jelly!

This year’s bottle is more austere – less “sexy”, if you like – than last year’s Chichibu Whisky Matsuri bottle and it requires patience and a bit of imagination, but it’s a fascinating dram. Great selection by the matsuri folks. It can still be tried by the glass at many bars in Tokyo, so don’t pass it up if you have the chance!

Karuizawa “Five Decades”

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 10:15:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Update: we have confirmed the outturn with Number One Drinks and there are 200 bottles in total (100 for Japan, 100 for abroad). Rumours circulating that there were only 42 bottles are INCORRECT. Maybe these rumours were started by people looking to flip this bottle who want to make it look like it's more rare than it is.

Last month, a very interesting new Karuizawa was launched at department store Isetan in Shinjuku. It’s a vatting of malt spanning almost the entire history of production at Karuizawa distillery (disregarding a few years at the end of the 50s, a period of trial-and-error anyway) that was married in an ex-Karuizawa cask for a few years and bottled at the end of 2015 in a beautifully engraved decanter. A few cases were made available to customers of Isetan; the remainder will be on the shelves of duty free stores in Japan soon… It’s not cheap, of course, but moaning about Karuizawa prices is becoming a bit old hat, so we’re not going to go there. Let’s focus on the liquid instead!

Karuizawa “Five Decades 1960-2000” (61.4%)

Nose: dried fruits, pecan pie and, initially, hints of wood smoke, vintage leather and prosciutto; after a while, raspberry coulis, sour plums, kumquats and lemon-drizzled baked apples;
Palate: a powerful attack with fresh citrus and spice (shichimi, cloves), then gooseberries, candied ginger, mince pies, chutney and a hint of umeboshi;
Finish: long and intense on candied grapefruit peel, fresh lime, macadamia nut butter and, towards the end, ripe prunes and soba yu.
Fresh, but with incredible depth and complexity, this marks the end of an era: the legendary Karuizawa distillery’s swan song – everything it was condensed into an emotional liquid adieu.

Karuizawa 1980 for Harbour City Hong Kong

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:02:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

The time when Karuizawa single cask bottlings were coming at you faster than your paychecks is definitely over. That doesn’t mean it’s easier to get hold of a bottle when one does come by, of course. In fact, since everybody’s starved and waiting, it usually turns into a mad scramble for crumbs. So what a thrill it is to be able to spotlight a very recent 35yo Karuizawa single cask, bottled for Harbour City in Hong Kong. It’s from 1980, which is a pretty rare vintage. In fact, you can count the specimens from that vintage on the fingers of both hands. We’ve been able to try a few 1980s over the years and they were are all superb, without exception, so the expectations are high…

Karuizawa 1980 / 2015 (35yo) for Harbour City (HK), sherry butt #4376, 60.1%abv, 212btls.

Big and robust, this is not for the faint of heart. This is the whisky equivalent of Henry Rollins (and we’re huge fans of Mr. Rollins, so that’s saying something!) It’s very intense, that’s for sure. The nose needs a bit of taming with water in order to reveal its complexities – don’t even try without. It also needs time… loads of time. Then, little by little, you catch some glimpses of its aromatic universe: yakibuta, rock pools in summer, unagi sauce, porcini soup, permanent markers (don’t pretend you’ve never sniffed one!), bacon-wrapped dates, blue cheese and walnut toast, dried cantaloupes, tent odors (but nothing unpleasant!), wood creosote, rooibos tea, pomegranate molasses… It’s a combination of aromas that doesn’t conjure up any plausible “natural settings” (unless you’ve got a very unusual and adventurous daily life), but it works.

On the palate, it’s so thick it needs to be chewed – literally! Here, you get deer jerky, eggplant chutney, fennel, berry lime compote, dried persimmons (hoshigaki) and a tiny bit of lemongrass, but the wood is quite loud, so if you don’t like oak in your whisky, this could be a bit of a challenge. Since you can’t take out the water once you’ve added it, it would actually be better to start with the palate undiluted, and then add water and enjoy the nose, which is an atypical progression, of course, but you’ll notice it makes sense in this context. The finish is long and drying, but you get a really beautiful crossfade from bitter, peppery and minty notes to subtle hints of coffee, salt caramel and candied lime peel.

This is definitely not a whisky for beginners, but it’s incredibly rewarding if you’re willing to put in the work… No kiddy gloves here, but what a joy to be able to grapple with a whisky of this caliber – not many specimens like this around in this day and age of inoffensive, easy, superficially sexy whisky that seeks to please anyone and everyone.

Now for the bad news – it’s a bit expensive (what did you expect?). We’ve heard prices in the area of 80,000HKD. That is a lot of money – true – but life is short (and even shorter if your liver gets fed up) and I can tell you, you won’t have the chance to turn down a whisky like this for much longer anymore, since the Karuizawa stock is almost gone… You’re paying for a lot of things here – including the presentation featuring a wood block print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi which is stunning – but, as always, one has to weigh quality and quantity against the limits of one’s budget. That’s something we can’t help you with. As far as the liquid’s concerned, though, you’re in for a wild ride, so you’ve got nothing to worry about there!

Akashi 8yo for Germany

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 03:10:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Something special for our readers in Germany, or those who live close enough to make the trek to Nurnberg. The European distributor for Eigashima (White Oak Distillery), Les Whiskies du Monde, will be making its entire allocation of a recent Akashi single cask available exclusively to visitors to The Village Whisk(e)y-Messe Nurnberg (27-28 February 2016).
It’s an 8yo – which is the oldest stock available in the warehouses there – drawn from an “old sherry butt” (#5184), bottled non-coloured and non-chillfiltered at 50%abv. It was released in Japan towards the end of last year and the 120 bottles (of the total outturn of 900) destined for Europe are all going to the Whisk(e)-Messe in Nurnberg. Still a few weeks to plan a little weekend trip…

Ghost #7: Karuizawa x Kawasaki “Time Slip”

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 08:01:00 +0000

This release is now SOLD OUT. More Ghosts on the way, so watch this space.

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Towards the end of 2014, we were contacted by a friend who had made an incredible discovery in a forgotten warehouse up in the cold north of Japan (Hokkaido, to be precise): a blend of Karuizawa malt and Kawasaki grain from the late 70s that had been slumbering in glass for over 3 decades. We tried to curb our enthusiasm until we had tasted it… When we finally got round to tasting it, we knew we had to do something with it. It wasn’t just a historic curiosity. It was a pretty fine specimen from the days when most Japanese whisky was… well, quite frankly, nothing to write home about.

During the last phase of its life, the liquid was returned to wood (an ex-Karuizawa Spanish oak cask from the 80s, to be precise), which had had a reinvigorating effect on the whisky. The revitalizing phase was limited by the danger of the abv dropping too low, which fortunately did not happen. It was bottled during the last days of 2015, by which time the whisky had acquired a depth and vitality rarely encountered in whiskies from the late 70s.

It’s a unique whisky and there were many people involved in making it happen. This makes it slightly more expensive than the previous Ghost releases, but we couldn’t have done it without the chain of people that it took to complete this project. Another reason why it’s slightly more expensive is that 10% of each bottle is donated to Spirits for Small Change (stay tuned for more on the second edition of this whisky charity event, coming in early July).

The label features the print “The Ghost of Taira no Tomomori Appears at Daimotsu Bay” from Yoshitoshi’s “New Forms of 36 Ghosts”. The historical context behind the print is so complex that we are pretty sure none of our readers would reach the end of the paragraph without clicking the shopping link. In a nutshell: clan 1 (the Minamoto) destroys clan 2 (the Taira); the latter, trapped in a small bay and vastly outnumbered, realize their position is hopeless and decide to commit suicide by jumping in the sea tied to a very heavy anchor. Months later, the Ghosts of the Taira attempt to take revenge by stirring up a gale in Daimotsu Bay where the king pin of clan 1 happened to be. The ghosts of clan 2 tried to pull their enemies into the sea, but fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on whose side you’re on), the latter had a Buddhist priest on board who was able to disperse the ghosts by holding up a rosary and reciting Buddhist prayers. Ah, those were the days…

The analogy is far from perfect, but we felt there was some resonance between the story behind the liquid and the story behind the print… Feel free to contemplate the parallels as you sip this whisky. We don’t want to spoil all the fun.

So what’s it like? Well, you tell us! There are 282 bottles so more than plenty to go around. Just approach it with an open mind. This whisky is in a category of its own. It’s a blended whisky, but you can’t really compare it with your average blended whisky now. It’s finished in a single cask, but you can’t compare it with a single cask Karuizawa (don’t expect that… if it was that easy, we could all make single cask Karuizawas). It is what it is… a “Time Slip” whisky, a flash from the Showa past in high definition.

It’s available now from our friends at Malt City, here. But just a few things before you head on over to their site:

- it’s 1 bottle per person, folks… (we have sophisticated ways of removing people who try to play the system, so it’s best not to try);
- it’s not possible to select a delivery date for this product;
- there’s considerable work involved in shipping these bottles, so after you’ve placed your order, do be patient… shipping will commence mid-February in the order that orders come in, and final delivery will be completed by the end of March. It takes a bit longer than usual, because the outturn is much higher than with previous releases and the delivery capacity of Malt City is limited.
PLEASE REFRAIN FROM CONTACTING MALT CITY REGARDING THE DELIVERY SCHEDULE FOR YOUR ORDER.
- Malt City is not responsible for any trouble occurring because of local import/liquor rules, laws and regulations. Please confirm the rules for having liquor sent to your country before placing your order. Some countries have very restrictive laws about this. If it’s risky and you still want to proceed, please understand the risk is yours.
- the Malt City server will be down for maintenance on 2nd February: from 5am for approximately 30 minutes (Japanese time.)
Our friends of Malt City have a ton of work with the Ghost releases and this is the most mammoth one so far, so please help them by refraining from contacting them about details of this bottling. They simply don’t have the staff to be able to cope with loads of enquiries. Everything is set out clearly in this post.

Good luck and enjoy!

Oh, and Ghost 8 is in the works and that will be ultra-limited again (in terms of outturn). Stay tuned, as always!

Going Ape for the Year of the Monkey

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 07:31:00 +0000

Best wishes, dear reader, to you and your loved ones for the new year. We hope it’s filled with many good dr(e)ams (at reasonable prices - now there’s a good dream!).

Here in Japan, the first release of the year is upon us… or better, “was upon us” because it sold out in a flash. That doesn’t seem to have changed. Bottled exclusively for Takashimaya and released yesterday, people went ape for this single cask Chichibu (2010, Bourbon Barrel #644). In a matter of hours, it was all over the auctions. That hasn’t changed either...

Regular Nonjatta-readers will have noticed that things have slowed down a bit on the site. Part of this has to do with the fact that it’s getting harder to write about new releases, because either (a) we can’t write about them in advance because of embargoes on information imposed on us by distributors/retailers (understandably so, given the risk of speculators hijacking releases), or (b) we find out about a release just when it’s out but by the time we can sit down and put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) it’s already long gone, sold out. People have a hard time believing that releases come and go at the speed of light, but that is the reality at the moment.

We haven’t been sleeping on the job, however - far from it! - and the main reason why things have slowed down a bit on our site is because Stefan, our editor, has been traveling up and down the country, speaking with whisky makers past and present, visiting bars in every nook and cranny and digging through dusty archives left and right in preparation for what is meant to be the definitive book on Japanese whisky. It’ll be filled with tons of information never before published (not even in Japanese), but it’s absorbing every spare minute of his time, so there hasn’t been as much on the site as we would have liked. We’re only human (we know that’s a terrible excuse, but it’s true...). Stefan’s got a few more months of work ahead of him, during which he has to keep a lot of his powder dry, but when the book is done we’ll step on the accelerator and continue providing you with up-to-date news and insights from the ground, as we always have. There’s still snippets we will share with you over the coming months, so do check in from time to time. Without giving away too much, we can say that those who do may be able to get their hands on something really special in the weeks to come. ‘Nuff said...

Our wish for the new year is that people would actually start opening and drinking more Japanese whisky, like they used to before the boom. There are some really stellar drams out there, past and present, but it is only liquid at the end of the day… so don’t spend too much on it and don’t fetishize or worship it. We seem to be forgetting this more and more but whisky only fulfils its destiny in its consumption. So kanpai, here’s to lots of whisky sipped and savoured in 2016!

W-E Love Craft

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 02:51:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

On December 5th, Whisk-e is throwing a big end-of-year party at Club Diana near Hibiya Koen (Tokyo). More than 100 craft products from the Whisk-e portfolio will be available for tasting. This includes a range of craft beers (BrewDog, Mikkeller, Brewfist, 8Wired, De Molen and many more), a selection of stellar whiskies (from the likes of Arran, Springbank, Kilchoman, BenRiach, GlenDronach, Glenglassaugh, Samaroli, SMWS, Duncan Taylor, Berrys Bros. & Rudd, etc.) and craft spirits and cocktails (Adnams, Sipsmith, Sacred, Fever Tree, William Chase and so on).

The party starts at 1pm and runs until 5pm… so it won’t interfere with any evening plans you may have. Advance tickets are 4,000 yen (on the day, it’s 5,000 but you risk being sent back home if the venue reaches full capacity before you get to the door). You get 40 tasting vouchers and a raffle ticket for that – which you can use to sample any of the products available there. It’s an unbeatable deal, really. To give you an idea of how good it really is: for something super high-end like a Brora 1977 you need 10 tickets (which comes to 1,000 yen – try drinking that anywhere in the world for less), but if it’s quantity you’re after, you’ll be well pleased too (with beers, premium G&Ts, etc. priced at 2 or 3 tickets, i.e. a few hundred yen).

We’ve heard through the grapevine that James Watt himself (of BrewDog, not the inventor) will be at the party, and Alex Davies (ex-Chase/Cotswolds, soon to be head distiller at Kyoto Distillery) may be there, too. In any case, this will be the perfect way to start wrapping up 2015. Forget the stress and hysterics associated with big whisky events these days (“ooh, I need to start queuing at booth x to get a chance to buy/sample forthcoming whisky y”), just kick back and enjoy the best that craft brewing and distilling has to offer. Even better, bring your friends and family along (as long as they’re over 20) and spread the joy! For more information and to book your tickets, check here.

New Gin Distillery in Kyoto

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 09:32:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Plans have just been announced to set up a new craft distillery in Kyoto. The company behind the distillery is Number One Drinks Company Japan, which is a re-invention of Number One Drinks Co. – i.e. David Croll and Marcin Miller, who have been exporting fine Japanese whiskies since 2006 – with the addition of Marius Vestnes of Cask Owners as a third partner to spearhead the company’s distribution in Scandinavia.

The new distillery will be located in the south-west of Kyoto and hopes to be able to start producing by the middle of May 2016. Water will be sourced from a well in Fushimi, located in the grounds of one of the area’s most famous sake producers. Some essential botanicals, such as juniper, will be imported but the distillery plans to utilize a number of local ingredients as well. Copper stills are currently being produced by Caril GmbH and will be installed early in the New Year, as soon as they clear customs.

Alex Davies – of Chase and Cotswolds Distillery fame – will be the head distiller, assisted by Yoichi Motoki, who has been in the drinks industry for over 20 years, including a period spent distilling in Scotland.

A week doesn’t go by without a new gin being launched somewhere in the world, either as the main product of a distillery or a side-business for new whisky distilleries to create some cash flow, but the founders of Kyoto Distillery are confident theirs will be distinctive enough to make its mark. As Miller says, “The gin category remains dynamics but we are entering a period of natural selection where quality and a genuine backstory of craft and location is becoming increasingly important.” Croll adds: “ Our plan is simply to make the finest gin possible with a focus on Japanese botanicals. We realize that there are plenty of new entrants in the gin category but are confident that, by offering an exceptional spirit with a genuine point of difference, we will attract discerning consumers. Our initial emphasis will be on engaging with the Japanese bartending community and, thereafter, exporting to a small number of markets on allocation only.”

As soon as the stills are in place, we will be making a little visit to Kyoto Distillery, so watch this space.

Yamazakura 16yo: a new expression for the European market

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 02:34:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

In February 2016, French importer Les Whiskies du Monde will be releasing a new Japanese whisky specifically developed for the European market: Yamazakura 16.

The whisky is ‘produced’ by Sasanokawa Shuzo, a liquor company – mostly active in the sake and shochu field – based in Koriyama, Fukushima prefecture. They have been selling liquor since 1765, and entered the ‘ji-whisky’ field in 1946. Like most ‘whisky producers’ at the time, provenance of the liquid that went/goes into making the products is shrouded in mystery (spanning the spectrum from spirit imported in bulk from abroad and aged in Japan to actually making it from scratch). Sasanokawa may be known to Hanyu / Ichiro’s Malt fans of the first hour, since it was that company that helped Akuto-san with the practicalities of saving the stock from the old Hanyu distillery after its bankruptcy. Post-2004 and pre-Chichibu, the Hanyu stock was stored at the Sasanokawa warehouses and some of the first Ichiro’s Malt expressions were bottled there.

‘Yamazakura’ is a relatively new brand in the Sasanokawa portfolio – a high-end brand to complement their bottom-shelf whiskies destined for mixing. A few expressions are available in Japan (some of them at prices that are a bit steep, e.g. a 20yo single cask – again, provenance undisclosed – retails for over 30,000 yen), but this Yamazakura 16 will be exclusively available in Europe. It was aged for 16 years in ex-bourbon casks before being transferred to tanks for an undisclosed period of time, and then briefly returned to ex-bourbon casks to ‘wake up’ the spirit. It contains a relatively high proportion of grain whisky (80% corn, 20% malt) and is bottled at 40% (which may be the abv at which it was resting in the tanks). It’s limited to 1,992 bottles. Expected to retail for around 130 euro.

Hanyu 2000 for LMdW

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 01:17:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

A few weeks ago, we reviewed two Chichibus for LMdW. Today, we’re spending some quality time with the Hanyu that completes this year’s Venture Whisky/LMdW triptych.

Hanyu 2000/2015 for LMdW, ‘Tay Bak Chiang II’ series, Hogshead #63, 59%abv, 300 bottles

The initial impressions on the nose are: new furniture, smoked burdock and lots of ‘earthy’ notes – an autumn forest, decomposing fallen leaves, porcini, … In fact, this is a bit reminiscent of some post-1984 Karuizawas. It has a strong vegetal dimension, too, with potato gratin, leek mashed potatoes, turnips and a hint of spinach (with some fried bacon). There are some subtle floral notes in the background and a hint of grilled sardines. If you give it time in the glass, you get some beautiful balsamic-glazed apricots. What a feast.

On the palate, it’s like Hanyu on speed. Very thick, concentrated and compact, you get lots of orange preserve, tons of assorted candied citrus peel (with some candied ginger thrown in, too), spices (nutmeg, cloves), sweet-and-sour pork with pineapple and a little bit of foie gras. The finish is very long and coloured by a lovely sustained – but light! – bitterness (grapefruit albedo, kale).

Water transforms the experience so it’s good to have some handy. On the nose, it dials down the vegetables (which my son would love) and brings out more fruit, especially stewed fruits (peaches, mostly). On the palate, you get more of the subtleties involved: lotus root, yokan and kashiwa mocha. The finish is a bit controversial – some may find the increased bitterness too much, others will find it stimulating.

Having completed a tasting of the full Ichiro’s Card Series (which are all Hanyu, for those new to Japanese whisky) earlier this month, and then tasting a few recent Hanyu bottlings (that is to say, post-Card Series Hanyus), I am starting to feel that, for Hanyu, maybe the best is still to come… This bottling for LMdW certainly lends weight to that argument!

Arran Distillery 20th Anniversary Event & Special Release in Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 10:47:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Isle of Arran Distillery turned 20 this year, and while most other places in the world are waiting until next year to bring out the bells and whistles, in Japan this is the big celebration year. Here, coming of age is celebrated at age 20 – that’s when people can vote and drink alcohol.

To mark the occasion, Whisk-e (Arran’s distributor in Japan), is throwing a big party at the Park Hotel in Shiodome on 12 November (7:30-9:30pm). Arran Distillery Managing Director Euan Mitchell is flying over for the party, and in addition to some recent and not-so recent releases – stuff that you can only find at auctions or bars, if you’re lucky – people will also get the chance to try two new bottlings that haven’t made it to these shores yet: “Illicit Stills” (the first in a new trilogy called “The Smuggler’s Series”, which we had the chance to try straight from the vatting tank when we were at the distillery earlier this year and is a real treat!) and “The Bothy” (finished in quarter-casks). But there’s more… a very special Japan-only release will be unveiled at the party.

We spoke with David Croll, CEO of Whisk-e, and asked him to put the special release and the anniversary in perspective:

“Arran Distillery has a very special meaning for us as a company and for me personally. Purchasing one of the Founders' Bonds back in 1995, after a long phone conversation with Harold Currie (who fulfilled his dream to open his own distillery when aged 70 – an inspiration to us all!), was our first step into the drinks industry and the start of the business we have today.

Arran was a craft distillery before the term had really been invented and many of the current new market entrants can learn from their experiences. They have been through challenging times but now as they celebrate their 20th anniversary, the words 'new' and 'young' are long-forgotten and many of their recent releases have been launched to critical acclaim.

I was lucky enough to spend a year living on Arran during my transition from banker to purveyor of fine whiskies, and strolling across the Lochranza golf course for the morning ritual of a chat, a coffee and often something stronger with the sadly now-deceased Gordon Mitchell was something that will always live with me. Gordon was the first distillery manager at Arran, one of the ‘old school’ but a master of his trade. Many of the bottlings receiving such praise now were distilled and casked under his leadership. One of them is the 20th Anniversary Cask- 1995 #007 – yes, the 7th cask ever to be filled at Arran.

This was one of my own personal casks and I wanted to keep it longer but was persuaded that this anniversary was a fitting time to release it. It was re-racked several years ago into a fresh sherry hogshead and with a strength that has dropped naturally to close to 50%, combines a powerful richness with a soft elegance.

But don't take my word for it – why not come and join us at the Arran 20th Anniversary Party at the Park Hotel in Shiodome on Nov 12th. You can try a sample of this 20th Anniversary Cask as well as previews of other upcoming releases and a few bottles from the archives.”

The special 20th Anniversary decanter and box were designed by Glencairn Crystal. The decanters were hand-blown so they vary slightly in size. Because of this, the fill levels appear to be different (they aren’t!). This special release will available from the better liquor outlets in Japan in the near future.

A unicorn: Karuizawa 1960... the 'other' single cask

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 07:46:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Recently, we had the pleasure of visiting a private collection of wines and whiskies with mostly bottlings from previous decades. The whisky collection was heavily focused on older limited editions of Japanese whiskies, which is interesting because most collections of Japanese whiskies were started post-2005 (the year the first Ichiro's Hanyu bottlings were released, and a year or two later, the first Number One Drinks releases). The collection we visited gravitated towards old and limited Suntory and Nikka items, but in a tiny corner, we discovered a hitherto unknown release that would be the crown of anyone's Japanese whisky collection: the unknown, 'other' 1960 Karuizawa single cask. And there it was sitting, as an oddity, in a dark corner.

Everyone is familiar with the Number One Drinks Karuizawa 1960 (#5627), of course, but this particular bottle may be much rarer. It was bottled at the distillery. What the staff did in those days when they bottled single casks at the distillery (mostly for sale at the distillery shop) is: they would tap a cask and take as much liquid as they needed to have a good supply of a particular cask from a particular vintage on the shelves, and leave the rest to mature until a further date when they needed more. With younger vintages, bottles would sell out quite quickly (well, relatively speaking - that would be at a snail's pace observed from today's Japanese whisky climate!). With older vintages, which were quite expensive for the time (now they'd be considered bargains, of course), that wouldn't be the case, so they would only bottle very few and they were usually on the shelves for months and years. We have no idea how many bottles were taken from cask #2435, but it's likely to be in the single digits. This particular bottle was filled on 25 July 2007 at 47yo (62.2%abv - much higher, incidentally, than the Number One Drinks 1960, which was bottled at 51.7%abv).

There are many mysteries surrounding this bottle - was it bottled for a specific customer as a one-off? what happened to the remaining liquid in the cask? - and we're in the process of analysing video footage taken at Karuizawa distillery (including the shop and the shelves with all available vintages) to see if any light can be shed on the existence of this bottle. (Don't hold your breath, though!) For obvious reasons (security, first and foremost), the location of this bottle cannot be disclosed, but if it is ever opened - as we hope it will be - we'll be sure to share the news with you and throw a wicked party to mark the occasion. We're trying to encourage this, but it may never happen... In that sense, Karuizawa has become a victim of its own success, and of the madness (in terms of prices on the secondary market) surrounding it. A few years ago, setting up a tasting of that bottle would have been a walk in the park. Now, it's a different world.

Chichibu 2011 Beer Barrel & Madeira Hogshead for LMdW

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 10:24:00 +0000

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Up until last year, if you missed out on a single cask Chichibu, you could just wait a few weeks and another one would come along (well, assuming you lived in Japan). Those days are gone – a familiar refrain on the Japanese whisky scene – as Akuto-san is holding on to his stock for higher-aged expressions in the future. If there is a special release for a liquor shop or a bar in Japan these days, it’s more likely to be a special blend (‘Ichiro’s Malt & Grain’).

Fortunately, thanks to the persistence of the people at La Maison du Whisky, we can always look forward to some real gems in the fall every year. This year, like last year, there are three releases coming out of Akuto-san’s warehouses – 2 Chichibus and a Hanyu (which is becoming rarer than hen’s teeth!) – and just like last year, the labels feature artworks by Singaporean artist Tay Bak Chiang. Today, we’ll spotlight the Chichibus, the details of which are as follows:

Chichibu 2011/2015 for LMdW, ‘Tay Bak Chiang II’ series, Beer Barrel #3303, 59/7%abv, 267 bottles

Chichibu 2011/2015 for LMdW, ‘Tay Bak Chiang II’ series, Madeira Hogshead #1371, 62%abv, 308 bottles

One of our all time favourite Chichibu single casks is the Chichibu Whisky Matsuri 2015 release. It was fiendishly hard to get your hands on a bottle of that, because a) you had to go to the festival, and b) you had to win a lottery there and then. Most people I knew came back empty-handed, and bottles of that Chichibu now routinely change hands on auction sites for well over 1,000 euros. Anyway, that was a 2011 Chichibu, matured in an imperial stout barrel (#3292), so image our delight upon learning that LMdW was bottling a sister cask of that. There are no details about the type of beer that was in the cask before Akuto-san refilled it (‘refilled’ because these are barrels that originally contained Chichibu whisky, were then ‘lent’ to craft beer producers in Japan, and then returned to the distillery after the beer was bottled), but from the first nose, I would say it was the exact same type of cask as the Matsuri bottling.

You have to be fan of artisanal honey, but if you are, you will love this. A nose unlike any other whisky you’ve ever had (well, unless you’ve had that sister cask release): tons of manuka honey and baklava, but there’s more going on… assorted pastries (apricot Danish, almond-and-marzipan roulade), yuanxiao, grapefruit jelly, ‘hitotsubu no muscat’ (sugar-coated muscat grapes), yuzu peel, bergamot tea and a tiny hint of duck-a-l’orange. A sweet tooth’s wet dream…

There are no precedents for the Madeira hogshead. Akuto-san has done a few Madeira-hogshead finished Hanyus in the past (some for his Card series), but this must the first Chichibu release of its kind. It’s a very different affair. No honey, but blackberries and blueberries galore. Jams and preserves in an English garden – this would be great with some scones (what a shame we didn’t have any lying around the Nonjatta HQ). There are also hints of turkey meatballs (with blueberry chutney), pomelo, dates, foie gras with dried apricots and a slight whiff of raw mackerel (saba). After a bit of time, the nose is eerily reminiscent of some old Karuizawas – that is to say, not old vintages, but old standard official bottlings.

Back to the ex-beer barrel – on the palate, there’s still plenty of sweetness, but there’s a light savoury dimension that is most welcome: steamed endives, pear ginger chutney, cider-glazed turnips and apples with a bit of sage, … The mouthfeel is incredibly creamy, suggestive of crème d’anjou, white chocolate mousse and oatmeal. Citrus (candied grapefruit peel, Seville oranges, sudachi) takes over the palate after a few seconds and leads the dance all the way through the (very long!) finish with a touch of rosewater in the afterglow. Water dials up the honey on the nose, which isn’t really necessary (there’s plenty of that without water). It also pushes away the citrus on the palate, which you do want, so it’s best to keep the water on the side, in our humble opinion.

On to the Madeira hogshead: believe it or not, but this is slightly Mortlach-esque on the palate. Pâté de campagne, pork rillettes, beef stock, katsuobushi… but the assorted berries – fresh and stewed – are there too. There’s a distinct gooseberry note, too, which is really nice (if you are a fan of that forgotten delicacy). There are some nice floral touches, as well (but we’re no experts in that field – no pun intended – so we’ll leave it to someone else to pick out the particular varieties). On the finish some new elements are introduced, which tends to be an added bonus and it certainly is here as you get some lovely assorted praliné, rum-soaked cherries, ginger preserve, Indian spices, kaki (Japanese persimmon) and some subtle (second-hand) cigar smoke. The finish goes on and on – to the point where it’s almost more complex than the palate proper. This one is a good swimmer, so there’s hours of fun to be had in tweaking the harmony with some water and a spoon.

It’s clear that Akuto-san is doing some incredible things in his warehouses. We spent some time at the distillery with him talking about wood management and maturation techniques last month, and caught a glimpse of some of the amazing things that he’s been up to there on that front. (For those who read Japanese, our conversation will be published in Whisky Magazine Japan shortly – unfortunately, it’s just way too long [read: too costly] to be translated in English.) It’s still magic at the end of the day, but Akuto-san is digging deep, creatively speaking, to create the optimal conditions for that magic to happen.

Stay tuned for our review of the third release in this LMdW ‘Tai Bak Chiang II’ trilogy, a 2000 Hanyu.