Once I first tasted this spirit I used to be confused as a result of it appeared like a cross between a Japanese whiskey and an American bourbon. Which turned out to be true. However the story of this whiskey is far bigger.
Opening with aromas of herbs and meadow grass, this whiskey turns into properly woody on the palate, with robust caramel overtones persisting by means of its lengthy end. It’s made with 100% barley, fermented with koji and yeast, then double pot nonetheless distilled in a 100-year-old distillery in Japan. The spirit is aged in 90% virgin American oak and 10% former Bourbon casks, each of which contribute extensively to its taste and end.
This amazingly mild but substantial spirit is called after Jokichi Takamine, the Japanese chemist who contributed to growing such a distillation which makes use of a conventional Japanese koji mould in parallel with yeast fermentation.
Takamine additionally remoted epinephrine in 1900, making attainable the epi-pen which saves numerous lives immediately. And he’s liable for gifting the primary 2,000 of the famed cherry bushes lining the Tidal Basin of the Potomac in Washington DC, the place the Nationwide Cherry Blossom Pageant is held every spring.
Takamine Whiskey 8 yr outdated, Honkaku Spirits, Fukuoka, Japan, 81 proof, round $100
