Japanese whisky fans Tapani Kuusela and Johan Hofvander have bottled their own Karuizawa 14-year-old single cask whisky (cask 5024) and expect the bottles to arrive in Sweden shortly. It was distilled back in 1995 and matured and aged in a wine cask. There are 114 bottles, each packing quite a punch at 66 per cent alcohol. I can't wait for the tasting notes, which Tapani has promised to send in. So jealous!
Japanese whisky is world class but, of course, it is only one part of Japan's extraordinary alcohol culture. I have just realised that, because of a very fortuitous accident of timing, visitors to Japan for the Whisky Magazine Live! festival next year will have a great opportunity to explore a little bit further into some of the other attractions Japanese booze has to offer.
A bit of background: a genuinely exciting effort to kick-start sake tourism in Japan, called Sake Brewery Tours, has just started to organise five day tours of some of the country's most celebrated sake districts, offering behind the scenes looks at top breweries and expert instruction in the drink. The people behind the venture are absolutely top notch: Etsuko-san of Tokyofoodcast.com tipped me off about it and is involved herself; John Gauntner is, quite simply, the English speaking world's leading expert on sake.
Etsuko-san says: "For both tours, John will give a half-day lecture then visit the first brewery with the group. So, this is the rare opportunity to visit a brewery with the sake guru!"
First Tour: KansaiBut the great thing for whisky enthusiasts is the start date of the first tour. Tokyo Whisky Live!, Japan's biggest whisky event, is on February 21st, right before the start of the first sake tour, so a unique double whammy could be organised.
5 days Feb 23 (Tue) through Feb 27 (Sat)
Maiko and sake casks in Kyoto
A tour of three breweries with very different styles and approaches in the historical brewing centers in Fushimi, Kobe and Osaka. These are the historical heartlands of sake in Japan, with hundreds of years of tradition. Participants will also take in exquisite Japanese gardens and the historic Nijo Castle, built by Tokugawa Ieyasu. More importantly for some, there will be two sake focused dinners with plenty of sake to enjoy!
Second Tour: San-in (Shimane and Tottori)
5 days Mar 15 (Mon) through Mar 19 (Fri)
Visit a beautiful coastline which has been a cultural and historical crossroads for hundreds of years. Legend has it that the gods partied one hundred eighty days with the area's sake. You only have five days! You will also have the chance to visit the Izumo Grand Shrine, one of Japan’s most ancient and important shrines.
Nikka whisky's Taketsuru 21 year old pure malt whisky won the overall trophy for the whisky category at the 2009 International Spirits Challenge in London on Wednesday. The Taketsuru 21 adds the honour to the "World's Best Blended Malt" prize it won at the 2009 World Whisky Awards in April.
The five gold medals earned by Japanese whiskies at the Challenge went to Hibiki 17 year old (blended whisky), Taketsuru 21 year old (pure malt whisky), Yoichi 15 year old (single malt) and Hakushu 18 year old (single malt), and, my current favourite, the Yamazaki 1984 single malt.
My copy of the Malt Whisky Yearbook 2010 arrived yesterday. The section on Japanese whiskies has been revised slightly but is on pretty much the same basic template as last year's section, which still makes it perhaps the most reliable, succinct source of information about the subject in print.
If you own the 2009 version and are thinking about purchasing purely because of an interest in Japanese whisky, you may find yourself retreading some familiar material, but other sections of the yearbook have been completely rewritten and anybody with a broader interest in whisky will not regret the purchase. I was fascinated by Charles MacLean's article on the early Scottish whisky industry and Gavin D. Smith's contribution about innovations in whisky distilling. Ian Wisniewski's clear but detailed discussion of peating was, for me, worth the price of the book on its own.
£12.95
www.maltwhiskyyearbook.com
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