Whisky : Eigashima 12 Year Peated Cask Strength

Country/Distiller : Japan/Akashi

ABV : 59%

Cask : Spanish Oak Sherry Butt (Bottle 16/102)

Age : 12 Years (Sept. 1997—Sept. 2010)

Tasting : Neat in a Glencairn @ HWG Series #2

Nose :  A Shirley Temple by a campfire.  Mix of citrus lemon-lime soda with an extra big splash of cherry syrup accompanied by mild campfire and sulfuric notes.  Elements of slightly charred whole wheat toast smothered with strawberry jam give another variation on the fruity smoke.

Palate : Caramelized and slightly charred vegetable notes; sweet onion and fennel root give crisp, sweet, and slightly licorice elements.  Mild smoke, slightly burnt like an over caramelized brown sugar.

Finish : Long lingering spices that give way to faint medicinal notes.

Score : 8

Mental Image :  Campfire in the woods; extra cherry Shirley temple in hand, dinner grilling over the fire.

Something Better : BenRiach 6Y Peated Sherry Octave (similar thick body, less vegetable, more spice)

Something Similar : Longrow Red 13Y Malbec (similar cherry cola notes, berries, less smoke) 

Something Worse : Laphroaig PX (similar char & vegetable notes, more citrus, less body)

Whisky : Eigashima 5 Year Cask Strength

Country/Region : Japan/Akashi

ABV : 59%

Cask : American White Oak, Refill Spanish Oak Sherry Butt (bottle 99/102)

Age : 5 Years (July 2005—Sept. 2010)

Nose :  Sweet butter cream frosting on a spiced carrot cake.  This screams dessert— rich cream notes with slightly vegetable spices.  Faint orange citrus flower, almost like a scented hand soap, gives another look at fruit and vegetable fat.

Palate :  Braised carrots; tender carrots cooked with sugar and served with a sprinkle of salt and drizzle of honey.  Fruity notes dominate past the vegetable sweetness; tangerine cream candy and dried persimmons provide tartness and astringency.  A faint hint of zucchini bread.

Finish : Long and lingering sweet floral honey, cinnamon, and ginger.

Score : 6

Mental Image : Carrots.

Something Better : Arran 9Y Sherry Single Cask (similar dried fruit, more berries, slightly savory spices)

Something Similar : Glenfiddich 15Y Solera (less body, more baking spice/vanilla, less vegetable)

Something Worse : Ohishi Sherry Cask (similar cake frosting notes, more berries, more sweets)

Notes :  Eigashima distillery is probably one of the lesser known old hands of Japanese Whisky.  Their Akashi/White Oak labeled grain whisky expressions are affordable and fairly widely available, but their single malts are few and far between commanding the typical Japanese Whisky premium.  Their whisky operation is small and like most Japanese distillers they have been unable to keep up with the global demand, sacrificing well aged stocks in order to keep goods on the market.  I cannot say I blame them, whisky distilling feels like more of a pet project for Eigashima.  It was something they traditionally only did for a month out of the year— but which they now do for a couple months.  Their primary focus remains shochu and sake rather than whisky.

Two single cask halves of the “Luna Release,” I would have assumed the 12Y Peated was the “dark side of the moon” and the 5 Year unpeated “the light side.”  According to Stefan Van Eycken, who provided the bottles at the tasting, the inspiration was Taiso Yoshitoshi’s “One Hundred Views of the Moon.”  The 12 Year is the second oldest release from Eigashima and it is far older than most of their expressions which are bottled at just 3-5 years of age and sold to meet the dizzying demand for Japanese whisky.  Van Eycken hazarded that Eigashima likely no longer hold back any stocks for further aging.  As the operation is so small, they release everything they have.

While Eigashima’s grain whisky is not hard to find, bottles of their single malt are far less prevalent, and far more expensive when they do appear.  The first bottle came from a cask filled with peated scottish barley, the second with unpeated (or extremely lightly peated, 5PPM?) barley.  As with other small-medium distillers across the globe, Eigashima has no in-house maltings, and imports all of their malted barley (peated or unpeated) from Scotland.  

Both single malts were beautifully distilled and aged, though my clear preference is for the Peated 12Y.  The sweet and char on the nose combine wonderfully, reminiscent of the wine & char of Ardbeg Grooves, the phenolic fruit of Longrow Red, or the burning citrus and licorice of Laphroaig PX.  I love each of those bottles for their combination of sweet wine/sherry cask influence with savory peat.  The nose on the 12Y was excellent and the profile was something I could come back to over and over.  This was a great example of what Eigashima/Akashi can produce, which makes it all the more tragic that they will have nothing else like this again in the foreseeable future.

The 5Y ‘Light Side’ was also excellent, the vegetable notes gave it a unique sweetness.  The body was nice and juicy and the finish was excellent.  The bottle showed great maturity for its age, the hot summers and cold winters really give the Akashi malt the opportunity to hit above its age, even if the angel’s share is only 1-2% a year.  It was a joy to try these bottles, I wish Eigashima had accessible product like this… that didn’t require a mortgage (or stroke of fortune) to enjoy.