Karuizawa 35 Years Old 1981

Karuizawa distillery in Nagano Prefecture, operated by Mercian from 1956 until its closure in 2000 and demolished in 2016, produced virtually all of its most celebrated bottlings from sherry casks. This single cask from 1981, however, matured for its full 35 years in a bourbon cask, before being bottled in 2017 as a global release, a less common routing in the Karuizawa catalogue.

Ex-Bourbon wood on Karuizawa's Golden Promise spirit over 35 years builds a quite different profile from the distillery's sherry-dominant releases. American oak yields vanilla, toasted cereal, dried apple and a gentle coconut sweetness, with lighter colour and a cleaner, more open texture. The concentrated richness of the base spirit still asserts itself over such a long maturation, producing something with body and persistence. Without a recorded flavour note for this cask, the bourbon-wood house trajectory provides the guide. Bottled at 59.9% from a single cask.