“Deep Harmony” – a new, limited Hibiki

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

A few days ago, Suntory released a new no-age-statement Hibiki entitled “Deep Harmony”. This new edition is built around Hakushu malt matured in ex-red wine casks and Chita grain matured in ex-sherry casks. The blenders consider this to be a variation on the sweet and elegant taste profile of the Hibiki 17 but it’s quite unique because of the use of ex-red wine cask matured Hakushu. It’s bottled at 43% abv, and retails for 13,000 yen. The label is a ‘sakuranezu’ [a traditional Japanese sort of mauve] coloured special type of washi, suggestive of grapes (in reference to the red wine and sherry origin of the casks used to mature the components). It is exclusively available to the bar trade here in Japan, but I’m sure some bottles will find their way on local auction sites (as with the bar-exclusive umeshu-finished Yamazaki a few years ago). Stay tuned for detailed tasting notes.