Karuizawa Multi-Vintages #1 (LMDW)

Karuizawa Multi-Vintages No. 1 is a single-cask single malt from Karuizawa distillery in Nagano Prefecture, bottled in 2011 by La Maison du Whisky for an event release at 59.1% cask strength. The multi-vintage designation indicates the vatting of spirit from more than one distillation year within a single cask, an unusual format that draws on the depth of Karuizawa's closed-distillery inventory to create a layered, historically rich expression.

Rested across both an Oloroso sherry butt and a bourbon cask, the whisky delivers the profile the distillery became famous for: dried fruit, old leather, tobacco, nutty wood and a savoury sherried backbone. The combination of cask types adds complexity, with the sweetness of the bourbon wood tempering the weight of the sherry-seasoned vessel. At cask strength the whisky is concentrated and demanding, with the leathery, old-wood depth that long maturation in Karuizawa's Nagano conditions consistently produced.