An early Whisky Talk Fukuoka bottling, this one being from the "Moon and Vanishing Animals" (月と失われゆく動物) series. This animal is the Japanese crested ibis (トキ). Why is it in katakana? This bird went extinct in Japan in 2003, with the last bird crashing into the door of its cage. China bred and continues to breed these Japanese crested ibi and sent some to Japan to be released into the wild. Interesting, does the back label say 5% of sales proceeds go to earthquake disaster relief? Remember the great Tohoku earthquake of 2011? Got so many job interviews cancelled because of that stupid earthquake.

Nose: boiled peanuts, a sort of non-bourbon peanut aroma, fruit flowers show up later. Not very Hanyu-ish. More complex than the Whisky Agency Cragganmore I just had.

Palate: medium body, initial palate is plain water, but perhaps because I had several delicious pours before this... argh, mid palate has the flavors run all over the mouth, the spice is killing nerves, like an old BBQ, but I wouldn't say smoke, but something more similar to burnt wood with intense tart-like oils, not citrus-y, not very fruity or desert-like, wow a bit confusing, back palate is more intense but the same... what am I even saying? This is like Stagg Jr. but without the sweetness and without the somewhat chewy peanut shells that occur from batch to batch.

Finish: short to medium, just burn. My notes say "reciting useless poetry"... what the heck?

I have no idea. My notes got really weird after this so not sure if I was drunk at this point or they somehow got copied over by another source I was looking at. Good thing there was a grade.

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

🇭🇰 🇺🇸(LA, SF) -> 🇯🇵 (京都, 東京) -> 🇰🇷 (서울, 부산)