Shizuoka Yakitori Kawa
A Japanese single malt I had to score…
Imagine one of those days at work that just keeps getting worse. And then one of your favorite co-workers asks if you want to go for a drink after work and you basically shout: “ YES PLEASE!”.
It happened to me. I had just one of those days where the Limp Bizkit song Break Stuff kept playing in my head.And when I was asked to go for a drink I agreed readily. And, since I reacted so fast and furious, I was allowed to choose where we would go. And I wanted to go to Izakaya Yakitori Kawa, a Japanese restaurant just around the corner of the office and home to a large collection of Japanese whiskies. (And beers, and Sake etc. But this is a whisky blog.)
And on the large chalkboard whisky menu my eye spotted a Shizuoka Private Cask, Japanese Malt. Bottled for this restaurant. I ordered a dram, tried the dram, loved the dram.
So learned from previous mistakes of waiting out, I approached the owner with the question if I could purchase one of these bottles from him. The answer was yes. However, in the set. This dram has two little brothers, both British Malt. After begging a lot and promising not to tell anyone (F#CK, I messed up there.), I was, reluctantly, allowed to get just this one.
So this whisky, aged for 3,5 years on an ex-bourbon cask, with cask number 2021-1014, was bottled at 63,7% Vol.
It has no added color (Yes, that beautiful dark amber is natural!) and is non chill filtered.
On the first nosing a bomb of tropical fruit mixed with some vanilla hits you like a tsunami. Think apricots, wild peaches, plums, some coconut and dragon fruits. The second sniffing adds some chocolate on the nose, but it does not linger. On the third return to the nose, the chocolate is gone and replaced by butterscotch.
On the mouth the fruit stays. It starts with some sour Granny Smith apple, mixed with some blood oranges and wild peaches. Then the vanilla hits in combination with some of the alcohol (It could not stay hidden at 63,7%) and brings the chocolate back in its trailing. Some deeper notes arrive: Some mocha with some custard. Toasted cake and burned sugar.
The finish lasts on a mix of toast with orange peel and oak. And linger just enough time to be defined as a long finish.
Sounds good right? Go try a dram at Izakaya Yakitori Kawa.