1st Nonjatta Exclusive Bottling: Karuizawa 1996/2013

Post by Stefan of Tokyo Whisky Hub

Today, we’re happy to be able to unveil a special bottling selected by and exclusively available through Nonjatta. It is the first in a series of Japanese whiskies featuring artwork taken from the last great ukiyoe artist Yoshitoshi’s final series of woodblock prints “New Forms of 36 Ghosts” (1889-1892).

For our first bottling, we chose a rather atypical Karuizawa from the 1996 vintage. Cask #3681 was, in fact, one of the last from this vintage. It was carefully selected from the remaining stock – from the late 70s up to the final vintage, 2000 – and the moment we nosed it, we knew this was something special. People have come to associate Karuizawa with bold, robust, oily, richly fruited whiskies. This bottling shows a different side of the distillery character: light, elegant and subtle. It’s unlike any other Karuizawa you’ve ever tasted, and that’s precisely why we picked it.

On the nose, you get a wonderfully subtle amalgam of soft fruity notes: strawberry fruiche (a Japanese kind of home-made flavoured yoghurt), apricot butter, melon hi-chew, tinned peaches, dried pineapple and in the background, heather flowers and a hint of marjoram. The palate has some lovely surprises in store: pink grapefruit most prominently, but also apple sauce, peach jam and gooseberries. But there’s more: kashiwa mochi (a Japanese sweet rice cake wrapped in oak leaf), baked alaska, pencil shavings, and a hint of sudachi (a Japanese citrus fruit) and pink pepper. The finish is long and lingering… and well, modesty precludes us from raving too much about it, but it truly is a small miracle.

The label, as mentioned above, features a woodblock print from Yoshitoshi’s “New Forms of 36 Ghosts”. The series captures moments – episodes involving ghosts and/or unnatural events - from Japanese legends and folktales and shows a time when the spirit world was much closer to the consciousness of people. Our Karuizawa 1996 features print no14: “The Enlightenment of Jigokudayu”. “Dayu” was a term of respect for the highest rank of courtesan, but “Jigoku” (literally, “hell”) was a term for the lowest rank of unlicensed workers in the pleasure quarters of those days. Having abandoned her earlier life and ways, “Lady Hell” is portrayed here sitting in meditation as a procession of skeleton courtesans – including two child skeletons, the courtesan’s child attendants – passes by her.

We like to think there is a certain resonance between aspects of the print and the character of the liquid in the bottle. These sort of resonances will be further explored in subsequent bottlings and we invite you to join us in this project. There are 35 more prints, and it’s our goal to find the right Japanese whisky to “go with” each and every one of those prints. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves - back to our Karuizawa 1996: it’s available from our friends at Malt City via this exclusive link. The cask only yielded 140 bottles, so there is a limit of 1 bottle per customer.

We are often placed in a sort of “don’t shoot the pianist”-position when we share news of exciting new releases coming out of Japan. Many of them are hard to get for our readers abroad; some are already gone by the time we report on them; others are prohibitively expensive. It therefore fills us with happiness to be able to finally present something that is available, first of all, to you.