Asaka Yamazakura 2016 – New Born Cask #5008

Asaka is the whisky distillery of Sasanokawa Shuzo, a Koriyama sake house in Fukushima trading since 1765 and whisky licensed since 1946. It refitted the Asaka site for malt in 2016, and in 2017 released a set of New Born single casks: its own distillate, bottled after only a few months in wood, before it was old enough to be called whisky.

Because this is new make, only months in wood, it is the distillery's spirit caught early rather than a matured whisky. Held in a first fill virgin American oak cask, which gives more raw oak, baking spice and a fuller vanilla than a used barrel would. The young distillate shows Asaka's clean, fruity character, malty and bready with a green, cereal edge, while the cask has begun to lend its first colour and sweetness. At 62.9% it is raw and intense, a long way from the rounded house single malt but a clear look at the spirit underneath it.

Cask #5008 was filled in 2016 and bottled the same period in a run of 271, part of the New Born set that the distillery used to show its first distillate across different woods. It is best read with water and curiosity, as a record of where an Asaka whisky begins rather than where it ends. Cask strength, natural colour, not chill filtered.