White Oak/Eigashima Distillery: Akashi: Single Malt (Japanese Single Malt Whisky: 46% abv)
Visual: Light gold with very slow, medium puckering streaks coming from the spirit.
Nose: Caramel. Custard. Vanilla. Sweet and gentle. Butterscotch. Heather. Water adds pineapple. Dry white chocolate. Grapes and slight strawberry.
Body: Woody. Peppery. Fluffy popcorn in flavor and feel. Tannins. Pineapple. Water adds slight green grapes and toffee.
Finish: Tannins. Pineapple. Orange skin. Popcorn. Soda water. Quite drying. Light salt. Water adds slight green grape and dry sake.
Conclusion: This is a gentle opener to a whisky tasting. While initially quite sweet on the aroma, with promising butterscotch and caramel notes (and yes I know a lot of people consider butterscotch an off note, this is butterscotch but in a nice way), the body then goes a different way. It is drier than you would expect, feeling slightly peppery with slight tannins. The slight dryness and some soda water like notes makes it almost feel like a pre made high-ball – they are light touches, but considering how popular the high-ball is in Japan I can’t completely ignore the chance that is a deliberate choice.
Apart from that there is still a light pineapple, still dry but slightly refreshing notes – still nothing like the sweetness that the nose suggested, instead given a much more attenuated feeling experience. There is some toffee, it isn’t gone completely, but generally it feels drier with an emphasis on something easy drinking.
And it manages it, a gentle, easy sipping dram. Not the most stand out but a good starting point for the night. Pleasant but not must have.
Background: So you may see that I put White Oak/Eigashima Distillery as well as Akashi in the name. Because you see there is also an Akashi-Tai distillery (Called Kaikyo Distillery) so I figured it was worth putting some extra info to make sure it was clear which Akashi distillery it was. Also to make clear White Oak is the name of the distillery, not something the whisky is aged in.Not that it helped me, as I got it confused anyway with Akkeshi Distillery, which I had tried an independent bottling of recently. Very different spirits though. Like Akashi-Tai, this distillery started from making sake, and in this case that means they used some sake traditional techniques during fermentation, which is an interesting touch. Don’t know how much it alters the end whisky without knowing more details, but definitely interesting. I tried this as part of the Single Malts Of The World tasting at Independent Spirit. I will admit this is not my best focussed picture, apologies.