Nagahama 5 Years Old 2017

Nagahama 5 Years Old 2017 is a single malt distilled at Nagahama Distillery, the small pot-still house opened in 2016 on the shores of Lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture. This single cask expression was distilled in 2017, matured for five years and bottled in 2022 at 57.8% cask strength for the European market. A mizunara finish is the defining feature of this particular cask.

The maturation begins in Ex-Bourbon barrels, building the distillery's typical lighter vanilla and orchard fruit base, before the whisky moves into mizunara, Japanese native oak, for its finish. Mizunara is the most celebrated and distinctive wood in the Japanese canon: its low density and particular chemical composition release sandalwood, incense and a faint coconut note that grows more pronounced with time. At five years and at full cask strength the mizunara influence is still integrating, but the aromatic lift it brings is clear, making this one of the more characteristically Japanese expressions from a young Shiga distillery.