Yamazakura Asaka

The Asaka distillery belongs to Sasanokawa Shuzo, a sake house in Koriyama, Fukushima, that has traded since 1765 and held a whisky licence since 1946. It refitted the Asaka site for malt whisky in 2016, the 250th anniversary of the company, becoming one of the first whisky makers in the Tohoku region. Soft meltwater from Lake Inawashiro and the Bandai mountains feeds the mash, double distilled in copper pot stills.

This is the 2023 Edition, an unpeated single malt built mainly from an unpeated base and aged in ex-bourbon American oak. Fukushima's basin climate, with hot summers and freezing winters, drives the spirit hard into the wood: ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla, oak lactones as coconut, and the spirit's own character shows as plum, wildflower honey and a clean citrus lift. The body stays light, the house signature here.

Bottled at 46% from a selection of ten casks into a run of 3,000 for Europe, it carries no age statement but rests at least three years, which the accelerated maturation makes count for more. Natural colour and not chill filtered. Drink it neat to read the fruit, or with a drop of water to open the honey and vanilla.