The legendary Ghost Series of Japanese whisky bottlings have developed some serious repute and that's not just because together they would eventually complete the series of prints New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts by Japan's last ukiyo-e print master Yoshitoshi, or even that over the past decade and on, they've come to paint the developing story of Japan's whisky scene - each and everyone one of them is hand-selected by Japanese whisky authority Stefan van Eycken, and are each a truly completely unique expression from the distillery from which they hail!

The final works of Japan's last ukiyo-e woodblock print master, Yoshitoshi.

The Rare Thing About Rare Things, Also Known In Japanese Whisky Terms As The Ghost Series

A mythical "rouge cask" from the one single year that Karuizawa had aged its whiskies in parent Mercian's wine casks? Or Akashi's aged in ex-Sake casks. How about a Chichibu aged in Apple Saison beer casks? Only the author of the hit book Whisky Rising, and the once editor of Japanese whisky site Nonjatta, also currently serving at Whisky Magazine Japan, Stefan van Eycken could pull these off. What started as a project to bottle some interesting and rare Japanese whiskies for fans of Nonjatta, has now become the definite (and ongoing) series of independently bottled Japanese whiskies that are amongst the most sought after, and also one that is incredibly historic - and tasty! Uniquely as well, each bottling carries a woodblock print from Japan's last Master, Yoshitoshi's, final series of works titled "New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts". It is said that the woodblock print selected for that specific bottle's label draws some resonance with the whisky that is being bottled.

| Read: First Impressions From An Early Arriver To Japan's Whisky New Era: Stefan van Eycken Takes Us Ghostbusting

And today it has just been announced that Ghost No. 23 is finally ready - a spectacular trio or triptych of whiskies from Kanosuke Distillery and its accompanying Hioki Distillery! These are amongst the first single casks to be bottled from Hioki, and also feature the first Umeshu cask finish - we'd expect nothing less from the Ghost Series at this point!

Watch the three friends embark on their adventure to make the Kanosuke Triptych happen!

As with each Ghost series bottling, the origins of this Kanosuke Ghost Triptych comes from fateful encounters. We find out that what started out more than 2 years ago as three friends - Stefan, Mac Salman (of Japan drinks YouTube channel, Kanpai Planet) and Roland K. Ng (Whisky Sifu, who has since joined Kanosuke after the project) - having joked about getting Kanosuke to bottle a single cask of Hioki grain whisky just as Kanosuke had begun to showcase them at festivals in Japan, would eventually culminate in the three friends actually seeing their dream fulfilled, having been invited to Kanosuke to select not just one but several casks together. We'll find out more about how this trip led to this three-peat when we talk to Stefan below.

You're about to hear alot more about Hioki in the near future - this is Kanosuke's powerhouse resting in plain sight!

The Thing About Hioki Distillery

Kanosuke Distillery has of course been the hottest distillery to emerge from the newest crop of craft distilleries in Japan over the past decade. The distillery itself had been created by fourth-generation Yoshitsugu Komasa, as a means of attracting interest and developing a greater appreciation for his family's historic craft of producing cask aged Shochu. The family's Komasa Jyozo was in fact famously the first to create a cask-aged Shochu, the Mellowed Kozuru, which remains in production today. And whilst Kanosuke has become incredibly popular for its single malt Japanese whiskies, Komasa-san has quickly worked to reconfigure the family's Shochu distillery, the Hioki Distillery, to allow for producing valuable grain and pot still whisky. With few distilleries in Japan able to produce grain whiskies, this would allow Kanosuke to create high quality blended whiskies, combining both whiskies from the Kanosuke Distillery and the Hioki Distillery. Already, Kanosuke has released a Hioki Pot Still Japanese whisky and a Double Distillery combining both distilleries' whiskies together!

Hioki very uniquely employs their generations of Shochu making expertise to making grain whisky.

At Hioki, what is particularly interesting is that the Shochu producing equipment has been used to produce the Single Grain whisky. A specially selected yeast for just the producing of grain whisky is used, with the fermentation tank used originally for Shochu-making. Malted barley and unmalted barley mash is combined and left to ferment together, after which they are double distilled in stainless steel pot stills, which can switch between vacuum and atmospheric distillation. Crucially, Hioki currently only employs the use of two cask types for the maturation of its single grain whiskies - New American White Oak Puncheons and ex-Bourbon Barrels. And thus the three friends having sampled ex-American White Oak Puncheons from various locations in the Hioki warehouse, as well as ex-Bourbon Barrels from next to the Kanosuke Distillery, had originally intended to bottle one of each, which would together be the first to showcase the two styles of Hioki Single Grain.

Kanosuke is shaping up to be a real force in the world of Japanese distilling.

A First Ghost Series Triptych To Capture The Growing Kanosuke Lore

Furthermore, whilst several Hioki expressions have been released by the distillery, we've yet to see from this newly emerging Hioki Distillery is a single grain single - and is what makes this Kanosuke Triptych from the Ghost Series so seminal! Whilst we're familiar with Kanosuke's single malts - and in fact, Ghost #16 was itself a very unique Kanosuke Single Malt finished in a Chardonnay cask! - this time the Ghost series is endeavouring to expand its breadth to encompass Kanosuke's updated range of whiskies. And thus Ghost #23 will be three distinct expressions:

23a. Kanosuke Hioki Pot Still (aged in new American white oak puncheon),

23b. Kanosuke Hioki Pot Still (aged in ex-Bourbon barrels),

23c. Kanosuke Double Distillery Umeshu Cask Finish                                                                  (3% Hioki Single Grain from 23a, 38% Hioki Single Grain from 23b, 59% Kanosuke Single Malt)

23a. Kanosuke Hioki Pot Still, Cask HG0088 (American White Oak Puncheon), 64% ABV, 4 Year Old

Tasting Notes by Stefan van Eycken

Nose: nama caramel, dried persimmon, custard cream puff, pencil shavings; also hints of burdock consommé soup and forest floor

Palate: a beautiful harmony of sweet and spicy flavors: vanilla, toasted coconut flakes and roasted marshmallows hand-in-hand with nutmeg, cloves, white pepper and cinnamon, also hints of orange zest and Brazil nuts

Finish: long, lingering and pleasantly spicy, with notes of custard giving way to candied ginger and milk chocolate with chilli pepper and lime

23b. Kanosuke Hioki Pot Still, Cask HG0287 (1st Fill Bourbon), 64% ABV, 3 Year Old

Tasting Notes by Stefan van Eycken

Nose: honey pound cake, canelé, fresh orchard fruits; also hints of porcini quiche, fresh laundry and underripe honeydew melon

Palate: suggestive of baked goods such as Earl grey scones, sweet potato pie and banana bread with creamy jams on the side (beni imo butter, apple butter, espresso milk jam) and white bean paste (shiroan)

Finish: long and warming with crème brûlée slowly giving way to white pepper and citrus zest

23c. Kanosuke Double Distillery Malt & Grain Blend, Cask PL04 (Umeshu Finish), 61% ABV, 4 Year Old

Tasting Notes by Stefan van Eycken

Nose: sweet pastries, baked apricots with brown sugar, Turkish delights, annin dofu and sour cherry pie; also hints of pine resin, ginger and thyme

Palate: complex and lush with notes of maple syrup toast, financier, daigaku imo, pink bubblegum, cherry cola and kuromitsu 

Finish: long but gentle with more sweet pastries but also subtle hints of elderflower liqueur and candied yuzu peel 

Without question, Stefan van Eycken knows Japanese whisky better than anybody! (Image Source: Japan Distilled)

With all that covered, let's go!

We get the full scoop from Stefan below.

[88 Bamboo] Welcome back Stefan! It seems like you're always trying to one up things with each new release - now we've got not one, but three unique bottlings that feature Kanosuke's Hioki single grain whisky, as well as a Double Distillery blend of Kanosuke and Hioki whisky. How did this happen!

[Stefan]: The initial idea was to showcase the two types of casks involved in the Hioki Pot Still production process (first-fill bourbon casks and virgin American white oak puncheons) and to select and bottle a superb single cask of each type.

This was then expanded to take some of the “surplus” of grain whisky in each of those casks and vat it with the Kanosuke Single Malt, and then age that vatting further in a marrying cask. This resulted in three individual bottles rather than a single one. 

The two grain whiskies were aged in a single first-fill ex-bourbon cask and a single virgin oak puncheon, respectively. The single marrying cask used for the blended whisky vatting was an ex-Umeshu puncheon. The malt whisky component in that vatting was aged in various types of casks (as is the case with the standard Kanosuke Single Malt Whisky).

Kanosuke's Shunichi Nakamura drawing samples of Hioki grain whisky. (Image Source: Kanpai Planet)

[88 Bamboo] Now you mentioned an ex-Umeshu Puncheon - that's definitely caught our attention, it's certainly not something you see everyday! Tell us more about using the choice.

[Stefan]: Aging whisky in ex-Umeshu casks is rather unusual in Japan, but it adds a distinct stone fruit note to the whisky that is different from maturation in ex-sherry casks. The idea was to create a uniquely individual blended whisky vatting and to use a rather unusual type of cask for this, but it is also the case that components [of a blend] do benefit from marrying in wood for a while. As this is a limited, very small-batch release, using a single cask (albeit a large one) seemed to be the best way to proceed.

This use of ex-Umeshu casks showcases the diversity of Komasa Jyozo’s liquor production and ties it together in a unique way. The Umeshu was made in-house and cask-aged on site. This cask was then used as a marrying cask for a blend of the malt and grain whisky made in-house.

Komasa Jyozo's Shochu-based Umeshu.

[88 Bamboo] Of course, with each release we know there's some thought that goes behind pairing the woodblock print from Yoshitoshi's New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts series and the whisky that's in the bottle itself. Do share with us what's the connection between the print you've selected and the Kanosuke Triptych.

[Stefan]: For this, I selected print number 36 in Yoshitoshi's series, also the final one, and it's titled The Heavy Basket. It's a variation on the Karma story, where a good man commits good deeds and he chooses the small basket and is greeted with great fortune. Whereas a bad man chooses the bigger, heavier basket, which opens to all sorts of monsters come out... you really don't want to be that guy! 

This in fact the first Ghost release that will be in foreign markets [particularly the US], and so we felt that this good versus bad theme would resonate with people.

Yoshitoshi's print number 36 is titled The Heavy Basket, and delves into the theme of karma.

[88 Bamboo] And I gather that the three of you musketeers [Stefan, Mac & Roland] had spent a day visiting Kanosuke and Hioki distilleries, which was where you were able to get a sense of the samples - that's all captured in Mac's YouTube video at Kanpai Planet (embedded above or watch it here!). What was the involvement of the Kanosuke team with the project? Also were there any unexpected surprises on this journey?

[Stefan]: So myself, Mac and Roland had selected the single cask grain whiskies, but were joined by distillery manager Shunichi Nakamura and head of brand advocacy Tatsuya Ishihara for this. Other people within the Kanosuke team were then involved in putting together and monitoring the single marrying cask blended whisky.

As for something unique about the project, I think we were amongst the first to taste the difference between these various locations in the warehouse where the barrels of Hioki Single Grain were being aged, as we had gotten samples from the lower, middle and upper racks. The same whisky was being matured in the same cask [type] - all Puncheons, so basically just the location that's different. And as Mac points out in his video, it's a rare opportunity to understand what racking at different levels does to the spirit. Ishihara-san's suggestion for us on how we could pull off a Double Distillery single cask malt and grain blend, and the discovery of the ex-Umeshu cask (that was absolutely stunning) which was eventually used were also highlights.

A very surprising turn of events was that a couple of months after we had picked our casks, as it had turned out, our ex-Bourbon cask of Hioki Single Grain had been incidentally used for the distillery's own flagship release, and so we had found that rather amusing and also fitting for the Ghost theme - a cask that we had chosen but then disappeared. Ultimately we were able to choose from another set of samples from sister casks which came from the same warehouse as the cask that we had lost.

Stefan, Roland and Mac, with Ishihara-san and Nakamura-san of Kanosuke. (Image Source: Kanpai Planet)

[88 Bamboo] What a story! You've worked with Kanosuke twice now, could we be seeing another feature of this very exciting distillery in the Ghost series again? And now that you've ventured into multiple releases for a single Ghost edition, could we be seeing future multiple bottlings? Finally tell us all the details on how we can find these Ghosts!

[Stefan]: There are no other bottlings [with Kanosuke] planned at the moment, but never say never! I'm a huge fan of Kanosuke and there will be 11 more releases before the series is finally complete (25 out of a total of 36 have been completed so far), so hopefully it will be possible to work together again at some point in the future before the series reaches its conclusion.

Whisky expert Dave Broom (center) conducting an epic tasting at the Aloha Whisky Bar in Ikebukuro, here pictured with David Tsujimoto (left), the wonderful owner of Aloha Whisky Bar, and Stefan van Eycken (right).

As for multi-releases, no releases with multiple bottlings are planned at the moment in the Ghost Series, but it is not inconceivable that a project might be found that suggests the release of 2 or more bottlings rather than a single one.

This Kanosuke Triptych will be officially released on 3rd March 2025, and was presented at a special event at Aloha Whisky Bar the day before. Some of the bottles will be available in Japan (with priority given to bars), whilst a portion of the bottles will be available in the U.S., and a handful will go out to other key international markets (with a priority given to on-trade). Do take note that the Ghost releases will not be available at the [Kanosuke] distillery shop, and as the saying goes - the only thing guaranteed in life is death and taxes, so there are no guarantees that anyone can obtain any or all three bottlings.

Happy hunting!

Kanpai!

88 Bamboo Editorial Team