ABV: 51.4 %
Origin: Japan
Type: Blended
Bottles in collection: 0
Emptied bottles: 1
Impression: 3/5

Tasting notes
Nose: This is sweet and herbal. At first the high ABV together with the grain spirit create a cloud of acetone on top of a sweet vanilla butterscotch. The backbone is quite earthy with dry soil and dried herbs. There is an outside layer of assorted dark and dried fruits, but they are no way dominating the whole. There’s also a speck of dust floating around. This is a ”something good/something bad” kind of nose.

Mouth: It starts out very sweet and with a big vanilla flavour. After a few seconds the earthy, dry soil note returns and so do the dried herbs. There’s an anise note coming through quite early and it’s not especially pleasant. It sort of switches towards pine and dust after a few seconds which doesn’t help. There is a nice hint of ripe fruits coming through, but it’s not taking any steps forward. It’s way milder on the palate than on the nose. The oak do arrive, but it’s covered by the pine and anise.

Finish: A cloud of the acetone passes by and then it goes straight to a slightly astringent and vanilla sweet oakiness. There’s still an outer layer of dark and dried fruits and they’re more present in the finish. The oak delivers an extremely fresh oakiness, but there is still a dust note left behind. The pine note return in the finish and makes it take a turn for the worse. This is a well made blend with some good components, but it’s still suffering from its big grain spirit part.

Additional information
This blend was created in 1985. It consists of 40 % malt and 60 % grain. A batch is made from 120 casks, mostly first fill american ex-bourbon oak barrels mixed with sherry butts and refill hogsheads. The whisky is aged between 10-12 years, and the leading malt is Miyagikyo from the Sendai Distillery and whisky from the Yoichi distillery is also included.