We've reviewed exclusively scotches, all single malts aside from a couple blends, over the last 8 months. We plan to keep that trend up at least for a little while here, but we want to branch out eventually into other whiskies and even rum. This Japanese Single Malt is our first venture outside the rocky plains of Scotland and we've been looking forward to it.
48% ABV. $130 CAD here in Ontario. NAS, likely a very young scotch, we don't imagine this is much older than 5-6 years old, perhaps less even. No coloring and NCF.
We sniff around.
Peat.
Simon goes for a sweet burnt tires. Rubber.
Trevor goes for mothballs.
Some conifer trees in there, pine, cedar.
Scott goes for pepper.
It smells like new packaging. Like sticking your head in a brand new plastic tote. Some kind of adhesive factory.
A forest with burning tires in it.
There's a vaguely sweet aroma too that stands out.
We cheers.
Scott goes for lemon. Vague sweetness. Good heat to it.
Simon says it's almost a copy paste from the nose. There's a black liquorish. The cedars and pines are there.
Salty. Peaty but a different kind of peat, not anything like we've seen from Islay.
Trevor says it looks thin but a little chewy. We don't really know what chewy means.
Simon goes for a roastiness. He feels like he's in a plywood mill drinking this.
Not a ton going on in the finish. A little heat lingers. Kyle says burnt toast finish.
Youthful, lively, evaporation kind of feel to it.
Gets sweeter with a drop of water Kyle says.
Reviews: Simon's pick so he goes first. These are some notes we've never pulled from Scotland so it's diverse that way. The forest with the salt and the burnt tires, the mild sweetness overshadowing it all, it strikes a chord with Simon. He loves that youthful fizzy feel it has to it too. He expects to be a bit of an outlier here but he loves this stuff, goes 90. Kyle can't share the same enthusiasm, but it is interesting and he does enjoy it. A drop of water bumps it up a couple points. The new packaging smell he actually likes. He goes 75. Trevor appreciates the uniqueness of this. Reminds him of cedar tea, it's got something primitive about it. He goes 82. Sean thinks it's decent whisky but it's not anything he's going to seek out. It doesn't have a great finish to it. At the same time he can respect it's pretty interesting and well done so he puts an 80 on it. Scott goes 64. There's some things he likes about it but overall not something he enjoys enough to get into the 70s. The woodsiness is nice. Rubber, plastic... doesn't appeal to him. A little too hot too as well. Averages out to 78.2.
Overall: This whisky has one of the largest standard deviations thus far. Whether we recommend it really depends on whether you look at our tasting notes and get excited or frown. This is a weird one. We think it would be hard to pin blind. It's almost like funky barrel aged gin. That said, this is the first Japanese Single Malt that we've really dug into, so we're speaking with very little experience here. We're looking forward to some more from Japan in the near future.
Cheers!
The S&P Crew
Good review. I'll need to keep an eye out for this one