Asaka Yamazakura 2017 – New Born Cask #6250

Asaka, the whisky arm of the 1765 Koriyama sake house Sasanokawa Shuzo, carries a quiet pedigree: it stored Ichiro Akuto's Hanyu casks when that distillery closed, and the site matured the early Ichiro's Malt Card releases. Having refitted for its own whisky in 2016, it put out these New Born single casks in 2017 as a first look at the distillate.

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 ex-bourbon American oak cask, showing early vanilla and coconut against the young make. 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 63.2% it is raw and intense, a long way from the rounded house single malt but a clear look at the spirit underneath it.

Cask #6250 was filled in 2017 and bottled the same period in a run of 232, 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.