Noh Whisky, Karuizawa Single Cask 1995 #5004 (Number One Drinks)

Taste it without water and the Karuizawa 1995 Single Cask (cask number #5004, bottled 2008) is full of character but is not something worth breaking the bank for. Diluted, it is worth investing half your retirement savings in Sub-Prime Brothers plc. and withdrawing the rest to spend on however many cases of the stuff you can get your greasy hands on. I have two small crumpled pages of hastily written notes in front of me which I have delayed to long in writing up. I am not quite sure what some of it means, so I will just copy out the first page:

"Undiluted
Nose: pastry dough, plums (green), Demerara sugar, very very faintly ammonic. Taste: Parching. Sweet at first but quickly becomes quite gamey. Meaty soup stock. Bovril. Doesn't sound appetising but quite rounded and satisfying. A salty after taste."

The second page deals with it diluted and I am afraid I descended into mere hyperbole. It seems the closer a drink gets to perfection the less this reviewer is able to capture it in anything other than abstracts and exclamations. So, here, for what it is worth, is what I wrote after dropping a couple of drops of Hakushu spring water into the Karuizawa:

"Diluted
Nose: toffees, sweets, apples, sweeter. Taste: Fantastic!! (double underlined). A real charmer. Cooked apples and dark sugar. Chocolate in there somewhere. Rounded. So classy, so balanced, so right that I can't find the specifics. Contentment. Warmth. Leather chairs and smelly environment destroying fires. Slightly maritime aftertaste."

You get the drift. I liked it very much.

Alcohol
Abv 63.0 per cent
Price
£75.00. Distributed by Number One Drinks.

Thanks to the Number One Drinks Company for sending the sample.
Nonjatta tries to live up to the Drink Blog Code when reviewing samples sent free.