To kick off my whisky blog i wanted to review the Suntory's The Yamazaki Single Malt 12 years old. This Japanese whisky was first pushed onto the market in 1984 and is produced in Suntory’s distillery in Shimamoto at the Osaka Prefecture. A beautiful distillery and a must visit for any Japanese whisky lover.
Produced with Japanese efficiency with 100% malted barley, copper pot stills and then matured in a variety of oaks including Japanese Oak (Mizunara grown in Hokkaido) and imported American/Spanish Oak. Then with the skills of Suntory master blenders they produce what we know as The Yamasaki Single Malt 12 years old, it took a while but in 2003, this whisky became the first Japanese whisky to receive a gold medal at the International Spirits Challenge (ISC).
The distillery has a estimated 6,000,000 litres of capacity after a major upgrade in 2013 by adding 4 more pot stills, making in total 16. One of the selling points Suntory mentions is the purity of the water in this region and at the distllery you can even purchase the water in a bottle remembering Japanese people do like their Hi-Ball whiskies! The Yamazaki range includes the 12, 18 and 25 year old and the distillers reserve (NAS).
The official tasting notes from the Yamasaki website:
Color: pure gold
Nose: peach, pineapple, grapefruit, clove, candied orange, vanilla,
Mizunara (Japanese oak)
Palate: coconut, cranberry, butter
Finish: sweet ginger, cinnamon, long finish
Source: Suntory Yamasaki website
In my opinion this is a beautiful whisky, great body, oily, smooth and a touch of fruitiness. Wow, I still remember when I first tried this, I just got into whisky’s and remembered thinking just how blown back I was with this whisky.
Price when I first purchased it around 2010 was around $90 AUD and that was an “import price” since it was a rare Japanese import, however how I wished to have purchased more, in a mere 4 years. You would be hard press to even find a bottle… and this includes a trip to japan and I still couldn’t find a bottle to purchase. Prices from my research have rocketed to around $150 AUD mark and those stores are out of stock.
So as you can tell, I would recommend it to my friends and I have and their feedback has always been great, but the real question is it value for money? The whisky is a beautiful whisky no doubt, but if you came across this bottle for say around $150 should you purchase it? I would say it depends, are you buying it to drink? to collect? or to collect and then to drink? I believe all whiskies are meant to be drunk and drunk with good company! But I do have a collector’s heart… to sit around a table and discuss the history and stories of a bottle, how you went to 10 stores or fought off another person to get this bottle is exactly the type of story you should sharing with your friends whilst sitting around enjoying the fruits of your labour!
However if for the current price and for what else you can get for the same price, you could be hard press to justify and it is probably one of the more expensive 12 year old malts (with the most expensive ones going to the peated ones). And we are in the middle of the Japanese Whisky hype due to The Yamasaki Sherry Cask in 2013 which won whisky of the year. So it’s a matter of supply vs demand and currently demand is HIGH, for example during my first trip toJapan I got this bottle for $50 AUD at the local grocery store… and then my second trip to japan I couldn’t even buy a bottle from the Distillery in Shimamoto!
So in my opinion, I do have a history with this particular whisky and if available again I will be very tempted to revisit the taste of this whisky again however for the people who are on the fence, I do recommend going to a whisky bar and trying it out before buying a bottle.
Taste: 8.5
Price: $$
Cost per Shot: $6.4 (Australian Shot sizes are 30mls)
Rarity: Hard to Find
For other reviews
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May 2016
- May 4, 2016 Ardbeg Uigeadail May 4, 2016
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April 2016
- Apr 22, 2016 Glen Orrin 30 Years Apr 22, 2016
- Apr 15, 2016 Hakushu 12 Years SMW Apr 15, 2016
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March 2016
- Mar 28, 2016 Nikka Coffey Grain Whisky Mar 28, 2016
- Mar 22, 2016 World Whiskies Awards 2016 Mar 22, 2016
- Mar 18, 2016 Glen Grant 10 Years Mar 18, 2016
- Mar 11, 2016 Sullivans Cove French Oak Cask Mar 11, 2016
- Mar 4, 2016 The Macallan 12 years Sherry Cask Mar 4, 2016
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February 2016
- Feb 26, 2016 Monkey Shoulders Blended Malt Feb 26, 2016
- Feb 19, 2016 Whisky 101 - Understanding the Label Feb 19, 2016
- Feb 12, 2016 Amrut Fusion SMW Feb 12, 2016
- Feb 8, 2016 Lagavulin 16 Years Old Feb 8, 2016
- Feb 7, 2016 The Yamazaki Single Malt 12 years old Feb 7, 2016