Before Karuizawa was shutdown and Number One Drinks took all the remaining casks, there were releases like this bottle. These are not as famous as the single cask releases from Number One. Wait a minute, Karuizawa closed in 2001... the mystery that surrounds these closed distilleries and their bottling agents.

Nose: honey, thick body of vegetation, a general sourness, honey bacon.

Palate: unbalanced, initial palate and mid palate is sour, a little vegetative, tree sap?, back palate has a meaty honey bacon flavor, a good amount of honey, overall very salty and sweet, similar to those products such as wasabi salt or BBQ salt, but in this case it's more like honey coated salt. Slight smoke in the background.

Finish: medium to long, spicey and sweet, like eating a tortilla wrapped undercooked applewood bacon.

Even though it had a 60% abv, it didn't taste like it. Very unbalanced, but had a variety of flavors, almost un-japanese. I felt most of the profile concentrated on salt and it's variants. The nose had that robust, strange, and intensified Lowland malt aroma, and the flavors added a honey-like salt on top of that. It has impact, it has strength, semi-diversity in flavor, but just too unbalanced, lacks depth, seems a little too young, which I find strange because I've noticed most Karuizawa releases under 20 seem to taste young; I'm beginning to wonder if the ingredients were designed to reveal their flavors in older casking conditions.

Grade: B-

Couldn't find quantifiable, reliable reviews.

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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