Karuizawa Single Cask #1602 49 Years Old (Oloroso)

Karuizawa distillery in Nagano Prefecture operated from 1956 until its closure in 2000. This expression, single cask number 1602, is listed at 49 Years Old and was matured in an Oloroso sherry butt before bottling at cask strength as a distillery release for the French market, at 65.7% abv. No vintage or bottling year is recorded in the listing data.

At 49 years in an Oloroso butt, the sherry influence on Karuizawa's already richly fruited spirit is absolute: the cask and the distillate have merged over decades into something impossibly concentrated, with dark dried fruit, aged leather, bitter chocolate, incense-like wood notes and the waxy, candied depth that marks the very oldest sherry-butt releases from the site. The cask strength of 65.7% is notably high for a spirit of this age, indicating a cask that retained unusual concentration through the mountain climate's slow evaporation. Among the oldest and most intense expressions Karuizawa produced.