Takamine 20 Year Old Single Grain Japanese Whisky – K&L California Japanese Whisky News
There’s nothing new about the Koji fermented barley. The process was developed in 1891 by Dr. Jokichi Takamine at a distillery in Peoria, Illinois. The idea to use the Koji to break down the complex carbohydrates in barley rather than going through the time consuming and expensive malting process was revolutionary at the time. His process was ultimately not adopted, although his visionary work in medicine and culture will endure for eternity. Similar enzymes extracted from Koji are used regularly in the Canadian whisky production process, but no one has worked to recreate the process until now. The Shinozaki Distillery in Fukuoka began experimenting with technique almost three decades ago. The result is an exceptionally balanced barley whisky that stands up wonderfully against malted whiskies. This small cache of ultra aged Japanese whiskies are some of the old 100% barley whiskies available anywhere in Japan these days. Here we go with the big boy. Over 25 years in fresh sherry, thought to be PX, and it’s still kicking. If they’d just used malted barley this would easily be worth 10 or 20 fold the asking price. But that’s not the point. What we really want to know is, does it deliver! HOLY MOLY! This is it. An absolutely monstrous nose of dense sherry fruit and deep nutty character. It could easily be a massively aged Glendronach or Glenfarclas. Sweet candied fruit, roasted nuts, old leather, molasses sauce and cocoa powder. ON the palate its juicy, almost wine like in its texture. The sweet and tart dried fruit is the star of the show on the front palate before fading toward a dense dark oak and roasted spice finish. It’s long and lifted with the expected tannic structure of these European oak sherry bombs. This one is not for the faint of heart, but lovers of old sherried malt will be enamored and maybe surprised. It’s so similar to what we know from Scotland, but yet very distinct. A truly unique expression which will not ever be recreated.
This whisky is made entirely from polished barley fermented with white koji and Fukuoka yeast. They are double distilled on pot stills and are proofed between runs to achieve a natural still strength of around 45%. They enter the cask at still strength and are aged in Shinozaki Distillery’s former municipal rice bunker turned aging facility. The facility has thick concrete walls and ceilings (much like MGP) which creates a cave like environment resulting in unusually graceful maturation of these whiskies in a warm climate. This rare parcel of heavily aged barrels was hand selected from some of the distillery’s initial experimentation with this new production style. While the whiskies are not malted, they achieve a great deal of depth and complexity and represent the finest and oldest grain whiskies coming out of Japan today. The selected casks -3187, 3188- were distilled on January 26th, 1998. The spirit was filled into fresh Sherry butts believed to have previously held PX. These whiskies are 100% fermented, distilled, aged, and bottled in Fukuoka, Japan. They are the longest aged products ever produced and released by Shinozaki Distillery and will not be matched in age again for many years to come (if ever). These barrels were bottled without chillfiltration with a natural cask strength of 40.7% abv without coloring or the use of additives whatsoever.
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