Whisky Discovery #89

Yamazaki 12 Year Old (43% abv)

Japanese Single Malt

Circa £42.00 70cl

This Japanese Whisky was sitting alongside the Auchentoshans. It's listed in Ian Buxton's great book '101 whiskies to try before you die' and was my 20th dram of the show. 

I know little about Japanese whisky and only tasted my first one last month at Whisky Live (a Nikka Pure Malt White - which I have been waiting on the distillery to send me more information that was promised).

The Yamazaki distillery was Japan’s first malt whisky distillery. Established in 1923 by Shinjro Torii, spirit first ran from the still on the 11th November 1924. 

The distillery is located in blissful serenity in the Vale of Yamazaki an area of dense bamboo grooves at the foot of Mt. Tennozan outside Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital and stronghold of traditional Japanese culture.
The whisky distillery is part of the Suntory brand and houses twelve stills of three different varieties. This allows Yamazaki to produce a range of flavours necessary for Suntory’s blended whiskies.

The Yamazaki Twelve Year-Old was launched in 1984 and stands as the first properly marketed single malt in Japan. Sweet vanilla and fruity notes derived from white oak casks are accented with fine aromas of spirits aged in sherry and Japanese oak casks.

So what did I think?

I was very impressed with this! It has a lovely flowery fruity nose, apple blossom, peaches, marmalade with vanilla and toffee too. It's very smooth and rich in flavour with a spicy touch in the mouth too. I think I need to investigate more Japanese whiskies in this journey and I'll be going back for more of this later, that's for sure.