The Malt Cask

A bit of Japanese whisky on the blog today. Apart from the post I wrote about my Nikka tasting session  at the beginning of August, I haven't reviewed any individual Japanese whisky. And the reason why is quite simple: the price. Japanese whisky is not something new; The Nikka company, for instance, starting production before WWII. However, it was pretty much unheard of in Europe until very recently, but for whatever reason, its popularity has absolutely exploded. And as usual with high demand and rather limited availability, prices have gone through the roof. If you want to get hold of a bottle of Yamazaki 12 for example, it will cost short short of £100. That's without mentioning the Yamazaki 18 which will set you back around £350 at auction. Even the NAS bottles will cost around £50. Personally, I do not think the hefty price-tag for these whiskies can be justified, no matter how good they might be. As mentioned above, a lot of it is to do with rarity and trend, and I don...

Something I haven't really done on the blog so far is review Japanese whiskies. In my mind, prices have gone through the roof in the last couple of years and for £100, I'm sure I can get something more exceptional than a 12 year old Japanese whisky... The only bottle I own is one my parents brought back from France a couple of Christmases ago and that is the All Malt from Nikka. I will review it in another post but it does lead me nicely to today's post which is about the Nikka tasting I attended last week at the Whisky Shop Manchester (I know, there once again! I must say I do not work for them or get anything back apart from more knowledge and experiences of whiskies I would not have got to try any other ways). The tasting was conducted by Stefanie Holt from the Nikka Company and involved 6 whiskies from their range, from grain to single malt to blend to pure malt. Here is the line up: 1. Nikka Coffey Grain Whisky 45% 2. Miyagikyo Single Malt 45% 3. Yoichi Single...