Karuizawa Five Decades

Karuizawa Five Decades is a single malt from Karuizawa distillery in Nagano Prefecture, a vatting that spans distillate laid down across the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and the final years up to closure in 2000. The concept captures the full arc of the distillery's working life in a single bottle, drawing together casks from five distinct decades of production at the small, volcano-foot site run by Mercian.

Matured in Ex-Bourbon casks, this expression shows a different face of Karuizawa from the sherry-dominant releases: vanilla, dried orchard fruit and a lighter wood spice from the American oak, with the cereal richness that Karuizawa's Golden Promise base and small pot stills always provided. Bottled at 61.4% cask strength for the Japanese market, the whisky is full-bodied and direct. The bottling year in the source data appears corrupted and cannot be confirmed.