Karuizawa 31 Years Old 1970

Karuizawa distillery in Nagano Prefecture operated from 1956 until its closure in 2000. This 1970 vintage single cask was matured for 31 years in an Ex-Sherry cask, bottled at cask strength in 2002 as a distillery release for the Japanese market, at 64.3% abv. The bottling year sits just two years after the distillery closed, a period when the broader international collector market for Karuizawa had barely begun to form.

Thirty-one years in former sherry wood develops a mid-weight sherry character: dried fruit, leather and spice, with the residual cask influence rather than the full density of an active Oloroso butt. The Ex-Sherry designation typically implies a cask that has already given much of its primary sherry character, producing a more restrained, wood-spiced and fruit-driven profile rather than the heavily dark-fruit-loaded intensity of the active sherry butts that dominate the later single cask releases. An early document from a distillery whose reputation was still building.