Yamazaki 12 Years Old

Yamazaki 12 Years Old is the benchmark single malt from Suntory's Yamazaki distillery in Osaka Prefecture, Japan's first malt distillery, founded in 1923 in the valley of Shimamoto where the Katsura, Uji and Kizu rivers meet and soft humidity aids maturation. This global core bottling sits at 43% and has long served as the reference point for Japanese single malt the world over.

Its character comes from a marriage of American, Spanish and Japanese mizunara oak casks. The American oak gives vanilla and honey, the Spanish sherry wood lends dried fruit, and the mizunara adds a faint sandalwood and incense note over the distillery's fresh orchard fruit. The listed citric lift and new wood tones round out a layered, balanced malt, soft and complete on the palate. It is the bottling that introduced much of the world to Yamazaki, and it still drinks with quiet poise.