Yamazaki 1993/2012 Sherry Butt for LMdW

Post by Stefan Van Eycken, Tokyo

Photo credit: LMDW

Very few make it out of Japan – and we’re talking about single cask, sherried Yamazakis here – so when one does and you happen to be living in what we call ‘the rest of the world’, you know you can start counting your blessings. Last year, La Maison du Whisky managed to get their hands on a 1993 single cask Yamazaki drawn from a 1st fill sherry butt. If you whisper that slowly into the ear of someone who’s tasted a couple of sherried Yamazaki single casks before, chances are you’re going to need a mop and a bucket – that’s how mouth-wateringly good most of them are. There’s a reason for that: the people at Suntory are very particular about their sherry casks (well, they’re very particular about many things…) They regularly send wood specialists to forests in the north of Spain to look for the right trees; then, they have the wood prepared and coopered to their specifications by local craftsmen, while breathing down their neck; after that, they have the casks sent to top bodegas in Jerez, where they are seasoned with sherry for at least 3 years… and the best of those are sent back to Japan to be filled at Suntory’s warehouses here. If you think sherried Yamazakis are a bit expensive, well, now you know why.

Anyway, let’s get back to La Maison’s pachyderm (cask #3T 70070, 57.5%abv, 444 bottles). On the nose, the initial impressions are: dark chocolate mousse, mole sauce, artisanal speculoos, macadamia nuts. Then, the fruit enters: apricot jam, Moro blood oranges, sultanas, dried prunes, brandy-soaked cherries, strawberries with balsamic vinegar, … Then, other elements start to emerge: spices (nutmeg, cloves), freshly polished leather, Frangelico liqueur, a hint of foie gras and a distinct floral note that I can’t quite put my finger on (I’m lousy when it comes to flowers, as my wife will agree). The thing that’s amazing about this plethora of aromas is that they are so beautifully harmonized, it’s as if someone – that would be Mother Nature – carefully tweaked the individual components to make the whole ‘just right’.

The experience is very different from sipping a similarly heavily-sherried Karuizawa, by the way. How can I put this? With Karuizawa, your feet are always firmly on the ground (sometimes, in the ground, I would say); here, with this and other sherried Yamazakis, they’re two inches off the ground. It’s a beast and it’s heavy but you’re in an area with lower gravity (a bit like that bizarre region in northern Canada).

Anyway, back to the liquid at hand. On the palate, it’s the perfect triad of sour, sweet and bitter. Sweet as in candied orange peel, Turkish delights, crema catalana and tiramisu; sour featuring lime and yama-mikan (a peculiarly sour, Japanese variety of mandarin oranges); and the bitterness of Seville oranges, dark chocolate and tannins from the oak. The finish is long and lingering on ‘Napoleon III’ truffles, orangettes, Korean kimchi chocolate, chestnut cream cake, a touch of garam masala and that floral element again. It’s sublime – it really is, hands down one of the best sherried Japanese whiskies you’ll ever taste in your life (and yes, we know, the competition’s pretty stiff – no pun intended).

You can throw your Christmas shopping list in the bin. This is what you really need to get through the year-end merrymaking. Apparently, there’s 60 bottles left. Just saying…

Read more about Yamazaki Distillery here.