Nagahama Inazuma

Nagahama Inazuma is a blended malt from Nagahama Distillery, the small pot-still house opened in 2016 in a brewpub beside Lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture. As a blended malt, Inazuma follows in the broader Nagahama tradition of vatting malt whiskies, and the name, meaning lightning in Japanese, distinguishes this line from the Amahagan World range. This NAS expression was bottled in 2021 at 47% for the German market.

The maturation follows the same route as the red wine-finished Amahagan: Ex-Bourbon casks build the base of vanilla and grain sweetness before a final period in red wine wood. The wine cask influence drives the fruit character forward, contributing red cherry, raspberry and a lightly tannic edge that gives structure to the softer bourbon foundation. The result is a fruit-forward, wine-influenced blended malt with the approachable style typical of Nagahama's house character.