Hanyu 20 Years Old 1990

Hanyu 20 Years Old 1990 is a single cask single malt distilled in 1990 at the closed Hanyu distillery in Saitama Prefecture and bottled in 2010 at cask strength by Ichiro Akuto. With two decades in wood and a Cream Sherry butt finish following the initial Ex-Bourbon maturation, this is a notably long ageing for Hanyu stock, which by 2010 was over ten years removed from the distillery's 2000 closure.

Cream Sherry casks are lighter in dried fruit density than Oloroso, typically yielding a softer, sweeter profile with toffee, gentle sultana and pale stone fruit rather than the dark chocolate and leather of a heavy sherry finish. Over twenty years from the bourbon years through to the sherry finish, the spirit would have absorbed considerable wood character, and at 52.4% this sits at the more measured end of the Hanyu single cask proof range.