Karuizawa 31 Years Old 1981 Cask #162 (LMDW)

Karuizawa distillery, the small single malt operation in Nagano Prefecture owned by Mercian, produced whisky from 1956 until closure in 2000 and was demolished in 2016. Cask number 162 is a 1981 single cask that spent 31 years in wood before La Maison du Whisky drew and bottled it for the French market in 2012.

Maturation was in a sherry butt seasoned with Oloroso, the dominant cask type in Karuizawa's warehouse. The flavour note on record for this cask is dried fruit, the kind of raisin, prune and fig character that sherry butts layer over decades onto the rich, Golden Promise-based spirit Karuizawa was known for. Those dried fruit notes typically integrate with leather, bitter chocolate and a warming, spiced finish in well-aged examples from this site. Bottled at 55.8% from a single cask.