Last Night's Tipple

My experience last night with Suntory Yamazaki 12 year old is yet another illustration of why it's a good idea to let spirits sit in the glass for a while after pouring them, especially if you're consuming them neat. When I first poured this, it smelled like paint thinner. Not at all pleasant. After about twenty minutes, it had transformed into the sweet, pleasantly-fragrant Yamazaki that I had remembered. The only logical explanation that I have for this is that pouring spirits volatilizes alcohol and makes nosing unpleasant. Once the alcohol sitting directly above the spirit has the opportunity to blow off, the aromas get much better. The bottle is almost gone, but my friendly neighborhood liquor superstore has recently started to carry the Yamazaki 12, so I will be able to replace it.

Unfortunately, there aren't many Japanese whiskies that are distributed in the United States. Some places have the Yamazaki 18, which is a little too rich for my blood. But neither of these are peated at all. Suntory's Hakushu distillery does produce a peated malt, but good luck finding it here. Nikka's Yoichi, though, is the Japanese whisky that I want to try the most. Yoichi is located on Hokkaido, the northernmost of the Japanese islands and probably the one with a climate most like Scotland. It was founded in 1934 by Masataka Taketsuru, who was a Suntory ex-employee, and the style of whisky that it produces is supposedly reminiscent of island Scotch whiskies -- the descriptions make it sound more like Highland Park than Laphroaig, but there is certainly a good dose of peat in them. Please, please, Nikka, ship more of this to the US.