Saburomaru 1960

Saburomaru 1960 is among the oldest Japanese whisky expressions ever bottled, a single malt distilled at the Saburomaru distillery in Toyama prefecture in 1960 and held in cask for 55 years before release in 2016. Saburomaru is operated by Wakatsuru Shuzo, a company making whisky since 1952, and this release represents liquid drawn from the earliest era of the distillery's history, long before the 2017 revival.

Maturation spanned Ex-Bourbon casks alongside ex-red wine casks, a combination that over half a century yielded a deeply evolved character. The flavour profile shows fragrant, hay-like and leafy aromas, old leather, a medicinal edge and the weight of aged wood. Red wine cask contact adds a dried-fruit dimension beneath the antique wood notes. Bottled at 47% as a cask strength release, this is a singular document of Toyama distilling history from a distillery whose roots predate the modern Japanese whisky renaissance.