Yamazaki 12 Years Old

Yamazaki 12 Years Old is a single malt from Suntory's Yamazaki distillery in Osaka Prefecture, Japan's first malt distillery, founded in 1923 in the river valley of Shimamoto south of Kyoto where soft humidity aids maturation. This is a cask strength sherry expression released for the Japan market in a full one litre bottle at a hearty 58%, a more powerful take on the familiar 12.

Matured in an Oloroso sherry butt, the Spanish oak drives rich dried fruit, raisin and chocolate, with a backbone of warm oak spice running through. At cask strength the sherry character turns deep and concentrated over the distillery's orchard fruit, the higher strength carrying the wood's sweetness with real weight. It is a fuller, undiluted take on the sherried Yamazaki house style, intense in the glass and well suited to a careful drop of water to open the layers.