Category Archives: Japan

Piña colada whisky – Nikka Coffey Grain 45%

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Naturally our Whisky Ladies ‘far east‘ trilogy closed with an offering from Japan. Japanese whiskies are known for their ability to craft exquisite top-notch quality whiskies. Nikka certainly has put out a number of quite fabulous whiskies.

Given the bold Kavalan Solist cask strength whisky, we took care to clear our palates and recalibrate our thinking before sampling this grain whisky. We knew it would be much more delicate and nuanced.

To help switch gears from the strong coffee quality of the Kavalan, we were reminded to think ‘coffey stills’ not ‘coffee.’ Our whisky contributor shared that the whisky is named for the type of ‘coffey’ stills used by Nikka. These column stills were enhanced by Aeneas Coffey, who patented his approach which revolutionised liquor production in the mid-1800s.

Here’s what the folks over at Nikka have to say about this particular whisky:

This Grain Whisky is distilled in a “Coffey still”, which is a very traditional and rare patent still Nikka imported from Scotland in 1963. The Coffey still produces a complex whisky with a mellow and sweet taste originating from the grain itself. Please enjoy the uniqueness of this whisky which Nikka offers to the connoisseurs.

Nikka Coffey Grain

Nikka Coffey Grain

Here is what we found:

  • Colour – Bright gold
  • Nose – Piña colada with coconut, pineapple, lots of tropical dry fruits, sweet as in very sweet, some struggled to get past the ‘alcohol’, vanilla, a little dry papaya, one of those high-end granola cereals chock full of dry fruits
  • Palate – Mmm… some spice, butter, coconut, honey, light banana, quite subtle, only when taking a big swig does the spice peak out
  • Finish – Back to piña colada
  • Water – Adds a little spice and caramel but not really needed

For a setting, we thought would be a perfect pre-dinner whisky to get things started. Or one to sip while having a good chat with a friend where the whisky accompanies nicely but doesn’t command attention or distract from the focus on a good conversation.

Overall it is quite restrained as a whisky, elegant, smooth and easy to drink. It is hard not think this is targeted at what marketeers thing appeals to women, stereotyping preferences for sweet  piña colada like beverages with frilly umbrellas.

What do our whisky ladies of Mumbai have to say?

  • “Instagram whisky with a soft filter”
  • “Gee… are they trying to say this is a woman’s whisky with pretty pink packaging?”
  • “Gateway whisky… easily accessible but…”

In short, most of our lasses prefer a bit less pina colada and a bit more substance and complexity.

That doesn’t mean this isn’t a decent whisky. It absolutely is. However it doesn’t quite hit the preferred character for our whisky women. Talk turned to Yoichi and Nikka’s Taketsuru Pure Malt and away from what was right in front of us.

Just to check if we were missing anything, took a gander at the tasting notes on the bottle:

  • Nose: Fresh and enticing, it reveals ripe pear, cherry and exotic fruit aromas. Citrus notes of blood orange and lemon appear, slowly giving way to more subtle floral scents. With air, aromas of pastry, coconut and bourbon vanilla emerge, with underlying notes of mint and a hint of musk.
  • Palate: Juice and pleasant, the promises of the nose are kept. Intense ripe fruit with rum accents (banana) and caramel. The complexity develops with hints of liquorice and star anise. The mid-palate shows more fruit, dominated by pear nectar and quickly moving on to creamier notes with an omnipresent freshness.
  • Finish: Just as pleasant as on the palate with pear and vanilla bourbon, ending on a very nice light bitter touch.

Do we agree? Well… once they mentioned pear, that rang true. But complex? Musk? Intense ripe fruit?? Hmm… and not one mention of  piña coladas??

Other Nikka whiskies sampled til date:

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Whisky Ladies visit the Far East – Kavalan + Nikka

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Our whisky ladies tend to travel – both for business and pleasure.

This is a huge bonus when you are a whisky fan based in Mumbai as our local offerings are relatively limited.

When one member was stopping at Singapore airport on her return from a conference, she asked for suggestions and ably rose to the assignment to acquire a whisky from Taiwan.

Another runs her own travel adventure company plus her spouse shares her passion for exploring whiskies. Compliments of their procurement prowess, we already sampled the yin yang contradictory character of Nikka Blended Whisky. So when a theme of ‘anything but Scottish whisky’ morphed into the ‘Far East’…. naturally she had a whisky from Japan to share!

We began our evening with an experiment… our host infused grapefruit and rosemary with a local gin to create a highly refreshing aperitif – delightful!

Kavalana Concertmaster, Solist + Nikka Coffey Grain

Kavalan Concertmaster, Solist + Nikka Coffey Grain

We then moved on to our main focus where we contrasted and compared:

From the shores of Taiwan and Japan, we hit mainland China to try a country liquor that was much more fun to puzzle out how to open than taste! It was, in short, undrinkable.

Finally closed our evening with a thimble of JD Tennessee Honey liqueur to go with our chocolate pizza – yum!

It was a delightful change to explore whiskies beyond Scotland for an evening and a reminder that there is a very good reason Kavalan attracts attention for its Solist range.

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5 Best Japanese Whiskies…

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It is no secret I quite like Japanese whiskies. It equally is no secret I find the price-tags abhorrent and many are frustratingly difficult to find.

So when I was asked by the editor of Man’s World magazine to write about the ‘5 Best Japanese Whiskies’ for their 15th Anniversary edition, knew the biggest challenge for readers is that what is here today is gone tomorrow. He left it to me to choose and I opted to feature producers / distilleries with a mix of more readily available plus hidden gems. As we all need a gem or two!

Mans World, Oct 2015

Mans World, Oct 2015

So what whiskies were featured and why?

Naturally this article was prepared before I sampled the spectacular Karuizawa 39 year. And there is always more to discover!

Any favourite Japanese whiskies out there?

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Whisky Ladies – Anything better than whisky and chocolate?

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Our Whisky Ladies in Mumbai’s February session had a bonus – chocolates specifically designed to pair with whiskies. One set of pralines were meant to pair best with a mild and soft, delicate whisky. The other set were meant to pair with smokey or sherry cask matured whiskies. Each lady also shared a little insight into the bottle she brought….

“When Neuhaus meets Single Malt Whiskies“

Delicate – Hibiki Harmony NAS 43%

A few of us initially sampled this delightful whisky as a soothing balm after a romp through seven Paul John whiskies – yes in addition to the quintet reviewed, there were two bonus samples direct from the master distiller! Our contributing whisky lady shared how she loves the delicate nuanced balance Harmony achieves with its three component whiskies – Yamasaki, Hakushu and Chita.

What did we discover with Harmony?

  • Whisky – The nose was indeed delicate, nuanced, flowery, honey sweet. The palate was soft, very well constructed. In short, an exceedingly civilised dram to kick-off our evening!
  • Chocolate – Paired with pralines having caramel ganache, caramelised hazelnuts or toasted almonds or a smooth, rich creamy single origin Javanese cocao milk chocolate

Peaty – Lagavulin 16 year 43%

Our contributor confessed this was her ‘go to’ dram during her London student days. For many this was a familiar friend. The kind of peaty ‘curl up by the fireside’ quality you turn to for comfort. For a few, it was a first introduction to this classic Islay dram.

What did we find with the Lagavulin?

  • Nose – Peat, split pea with ham soup, forrest, moss, then sweet honey, vanilla, warm toasted sugared almonds, finally a curl of cinnamon spice
  • Palate – Spicy, smokey, ‘tarka’, a buttery quality, keeps getting sweeter, rich, powerful
  • Finish – Long and dry, moss, smoke, vanilla
  • Quote – “I feel like I just took a drag from a cigarette!”

For chocolate, we paired similar to the sherry bomb…

Sherry – Abelour A’bunadh batch 46 (2013) 60.4%

Our whisky lady picked up this particular gem in the US at a speciality whisky store. She shared she wanted something distinctive to bring back to India and was directed to this gorgeous cask strength sherry bomb. She opened it prior to our session, fell in love and with great difficulty was able to keep it reserved for our tasting pleasure.

So…. how was this A’bunadh with chocolate?

  • Whisky – Gorgeous sherry notes of plums, figs, raisins, burnt sugar. Cherry berry sherry bomb on the palate full of rich flavours, well rounded and robust. The finish closed with long drawn out rummy raisins.
  • Chocolate – Paired with pralines having more of a deeper, bitter or more intense single origin chocolate from Peru, or ones containing speculooos or puffed rice to add texture and balance the smokey peat or christmas sweet of sherry

Some may recall we sampled batch 35 at a Whisky Ladies ‘Cask Strength Diwali‘ and for comparison, it was pulled out revealing juicier fruits.

Without a doubt, pairing whiskies with chocolate was a smashing success!

2016-02-27 Whisky + Chocolate

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Nikka Blended Whisky 40%

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We’ve been on a bit of a Japanese whisky roll for sometime now… From Nikka alone, have sampled:

So when there was an opportunity to try this at our November Whisky Ladies evening, who could resist?
20151126_NikkaBlended

What did we find?

Nikka Blended Whisky 40%
  • Nose – Papaya and then some seriously strong pineapple, very fruity, bursting with the tropics, “It is having a party in my nose!” Some honey, vanilla… A little sprig of sage
  • Palate – Smooth, creamy, ginger, cinnamon, bay leaf, soft and buttery, chocolate
  • Finish – The most disappointing part of the whisky, some black pepper, there but… after such a remarkable nose and interesting palate… bit of a let down really
  • With water – Nose took on apples, even more honey, apple pie, a bright perfume and the taste pure candy! Even the finish became sweet candies. One observed that with water it is a bit like “burping pears!”
  • Comments – “It’s like Victor / Victoria!” “Completely schizo!”

Quite flirtatious and quixotic, not at all straight forward, some complexity and just kept changing… now it is spicy, now it is sweet, now it is  spicy… sweet… spicy… sweet…

This one sure sparked a lot of conversation. The final conclusion was it is a very ‘gemini’ whisky with two faces… at one time all sweetness and light and then it turns around and jolts you “What the heck?”

Nikka’s two distilleries – Yoichi and Miyagikyo have a serious yin yang thing going on… The peaty Yoichi‘s are quite masculine whereas by contrast Miyagikyo’s whiskies tend to be quite delicate, nuanced and light.

The funny thing is even after all the conversation and all the exclamations, is it a ‘wow’ whisky? No. But definitely very interesting.

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Whisky Ladies November tasting adventures – take two!

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Our lovely ladies gathered not once but twice in November!

After a Cask Strength Diwali featuring Glenfarclas 105 60%, Chichibu 2009 63.1%, A’bunadh 35 60.3%… we were ready for a change of pace.

Shruti's Pic

Photo courtesy of our host @ShrutiS

Our line-up included:

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Singapore sipping – Miyagikyo 15 year 45%

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The wonderful thing about Singapore is that even places that are primarily for post-work beers such as The Bank Bar + Bistro near Asia Square stock a decent collections of whiskies.

Interestingly the server shared how they are pushing patrons towards the Glenfarclas and away from the Japanese whiskies they earlier promoted. Perhaps due to the rising prices and scarcity of the Japanese whiskies they are simply working through the remaining stock and trying to encourage a return to old faithfuls from Scotland?

20151203_The Bank

Naturally of the whiskies on offer, my eye was drawn to the Miyagikyo… particularly the 15 year. Yet  horror of all horrors, they serve in standard glasses. Oh… my inner whisky snob is definitely surfacing!

What did I find with the whisky?

  • Nose – Very sweet! Lots of toffee, fudge, mild spice…. apples… stewed apples to be precise
  • Palate – Can I just say – yum? Malty, bit of spice, a little bitter cinnamon bark, dry, has a good mouthfeel… a toffee sweetness
  • Finish – Definitely malty, quite pleasant with a splash of spice. Nice that it doesn’t just dash off but instead settles in for a friendly visit

No tropical fruits or other citrus elements, no perfume or sea salt. Why mention what its not? Well… normally I expect something more from the nose for a Japanese whisky. This one didn’t seem to have such layers of complexity on the nose… It also didn’t have the decidedly ‘feminine’ quality I was anticipating from a Miyagikyo. However in fairness… take one look at the picture and you know it wasn’t exactly sampled using optimal tasting glassware!

Overall the yumminess of the whisky and quite lovely finish more than compensated. In short – delightful.

20151203_Miyagikyo

Curious to see what others think, before publishing this post I looked up what the “Chaps at Master of Malt” have to say… OK this is scary… I swear I did not look at their notes before writing mine. I pinky swear it! But it does seem to back-up the impression of lovely but not so complex on the nose…

Tasting Notes by the chaps at Master of Malt

  • Nose: Very sweet with vanilla fudge, toffee apple and spice. A straightforward nose, without heaps of complexity, but very charming nonetheless.
  • Palate: Malty, toffeyed, and generically fruity, this is a great session dram – not too heavy, and very pleasing.
  • Finish: Spices, hints of granary toast. Malty.

Related posts about Nikka whiskies:

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Hibiki Japanese Harmony “Master’s Select” 43%

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My early introduction to Hibiki was with its enjoyable 12 year blend years ago and then its even more delightful 17 year sibling. However the craze for Japanese whiskies in recent years has meant pressures on stock and, like many other companies, Suntory is no exception to embracing the NAS trend rather than be restricted to have a year statement linked to the youngest whisky found in the bottle.

Japanese Harmony “Master’s Select” is a recent Hibiki offering found in most Duty Free shops around the world… and just so happens to be the whisky that kicked-off our regular group‘s November tasting trio!

Hibiki Japanese Harmony

As our normal practice, we sampled blind then revealed the whisky…

Hibiki Japanese Harmony NAS 43%

  • Colour – Amber
  • Nose – That new bottle ‘bang!’ with jackfruit, over-ripe fruit, then a little sour, slightly medicinal, morphing into sweet basil, a little Vicks vapour rub, very sweet, fresh, even a whiff of orange marmalade and eucalyptus
  • Palate – Dry, bitter, a bit ‘hard’ with light leather, quite ‘wintery’, a bit oaky, nutty – more along the lines of a betel nut with that astringent after taste, with a larger sip becomes quite spicy
  • Finish – There but relatively non-descript, nothing exceptional
  • Water – Without even adding, it feels like was already opened with a few drops of water, those that did found it spicier but didn’t add anything specific
  • Speculation – Sense that it is between 40 – 43%, feel of being a bit ‘junior’, could the colour have a little caramel?

The unveiling – the new Hibiki NAS blend with Yamazaki sherry cask, Hakushu and Chita.

And our overall thoughts? Quite straight, linear, no complexity, yet equally a ’no complaints’ kind of whisky! An entirely pleasant dram and when in the mood to simply sip, enjoy while listening to say.. classical music… this would do the trick!

Here’s what the Masters of Malt folks have to say about the whisky:

Hibiki Japanese Harmony is made with malt whiskies from the Yamazaki and Hakushu distilleries, as well as grain whisky from the Chita distillery. The whiskies are drawn from 5 different types of cask, including American white oak casks, Sherry casks and Mizunara oak casks. The blend itself was crafted by the Suntory Whisky blending team, led by Master Blender Shingo Torii. An elegant expression, with wafts of honey, orange, a herbaceous touch or two and light oak.
The other whiskies sampled in our November session included:

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Whisky double trouble

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A funny thing is starting to happen… as our original whisky tasting group looks forward to our 5th year together, we are beginning to do a little inadvertent duplication.

As our practice is to rotate hosts with each host responsible for curating the evening, not disclosing the whiskies procured for our sampling pleasure until after we have tasted blind, it means we do not coordinate with each other to ensure we aren’t buying the same or similar thing.

At the time of the reveal, we are now occasionally hearing ‘Oh’ in a different tone as the whisky just tried was already acquired for a forthcoming session by another member. That happened in August with the Bruichladdich The Organic Scottish Barley 50%.

However for those that are similar, rather than exactly the same, it means we can play around with interesting comparisons… and in the coming months we will have opportunities to do just that!

Hibiki Harmony, Aultmore 18, Glenburgie 15

Hibiki Harmony, Aultmore 18, Glenburgie 15

For example, November’s three whiskies included:

Why is that remarkable?

We had just sampled the Aultmore 15 year bottled by Gordon & MacPhail the previous month… and here was another Aultmore. Naturally we have asked the hosts from both sessions to bring along both bottles to our next tasting in January!

And now that I have the delightful Whisky Ladies group too, that provides scope for even more such comparisons! Between the two whisky tasting groups, I was able to put side-by-side the distillery release of Caol Ila 12 year next to a Gordon & MacPhail Caol Ila 12 year.

For those of you part of a whisky tasting group, how do you acquire whiskies and organise your sessions?

And do you sometimes get that ‘Oh!’ of duplication or ‘Oooh!’ for another opportunity to do a different kind of comparison?

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Rare Japanese Whisky – Karuizawa 39 year 1973/2013 Cask No 1607 67.7%

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I still cannot believe we sampled this near mythical dram. While I was intrigued but not blown away by the ‘entry level’ Asama, a mature Karuizawa whisky is valued in the $15,000 range?!

That is… if you can find it…

Image from Scotch Whisky Auction

Image from Scotch Whisky Auction

This vintage cask no 1607 release from Karuizawa was bottled exclusively for La Maison du Whisky at a cask strength of 67.7%. It was distilled in December 1973 and bottled July 2013, making it 39 years old, with only 138 bottles taken from the ex-sherry cask. To call it ‘rare’ is a bit of an understatement!

Here is what we found:

  • Colour – Deep rich burgandy
  • Nose – Like a fine cognac, hint of orange zest, grape, sugary honey
  • Palate – Fire, orange, chocolate
  • Finish – Cigar pipe tobacco soaked in cognac

The sample came courtesy of India’s Malt Maniac Krishna Nakula and tasted together with the gorgeous quartet of grand dames – Glendronach 39 – 42 year whiskies.

My tasting notes simply do not do justice…. it is hard to put into words something that just wraps you up in so many layers of richness… It was a bit overwhelming to sample such mature, complex and yet still eminently enjoyable drams. Age doesn’t necessarily mean quality, but in this case it does!

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