Hanyu 2000 – 2nd Bottling

Hanyu distillery in Saitama Prefecture, built by Toa Shuzo and closed in 2000, produced whisky from the early 1980s, and a portion of that pre-closure stock survived to be brought to market by Ichiro Akuto. This expression, drawn from the 1995 vintage and aged 15 years, was bottled at 46% for the Dutch market as the second official Hanyu bottling for that release programme.

Matured in Ex-Bourbon casks in the typical Hanyu house style, the spirit yields vanilla, dried apple and a light toasted grain note. At 46%, diluted below cask strength for this market release, the character is approachable and rounded rather than intense. The non-single-cask vatting means the result is a blended expression from the 1995 vintage rather than a single barrel, giving more consistency and less of the individual cask variation that marks the single cask series. The 2nd Bottling designation confirms its place in a numbered sequence for the Netherlands market.