Both Akkeshi Distillery and Wakatsuru Saburomaru Distillery have new full-size bottles coming soon. Let’s take a look at each.
Akkeshi Single Malt Whisky Kanro
This is the highly-anticipated first full-sized bottle from Akkeshi Distillery. It’s also the first entry in the “24 Solar Terms” lineup from the company. with Kanro meaning “cold dew,”
This is a blend of whiskies aged in bourbon, sherry, wine, and mizunara casks. Presumably all at least three years — Akkeshi has stuck to Scotch standards since day one.
Akkeshi provides us with some tasting hints. On the nose there’s strawberry, orange, apple, and cereal, then sour lemon, butter, sweetness of milk. Then the spiciness of white pepper, and sweetness of chocolate on the palate.
The distillery is no stranger to charging a pretty yen for their releases, and I guess Kanro delivers on that front. 15,000 yen before tax, 55% abv, 700ml.
This one lands on October 28, 2020. With 15,000 bottles being released, it ought to be significantly easier to find than Akkeshi’s previous bottles.
We’ll be looking at Akkeshi in much more detail in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
Single Malt Saburomaru 0 The Fool
To my knowledge this is the first full bottle release from the post-renovation Wakatsuru Saburomaru Distillery that uses their own spirit. At least that’s been the case for recent releases under the “Saburomaru” brand. That’s in contrast to their Moon Glow series.
Not many details are available yet, but from the label we can glean it’s heavily peated–probably 50ppm given previous statements from the company–distilled in 2017, and bottled this year.
“The Fool” is a reference to the tarot card, but perhaps with a slice of self-deprecating humor given Inagaki-san himself is just 32 years old. Don’t let his age fool you though — they are doing some pretty amazing things over in Toyama.
Saburomaru says Saburomaru 0 (zero) is coming in early November for 8600 yen before tax. 48% abv, 700ml. There will also be only 2000 bottles, so it’s not a gigantic release.
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