Japanese Whiskey brands - Award winning Yoichi

The most prominant Japanese Whiskey brands, Yoichi, is produced by Nikka Whisky Company has two malt whisky distilleries, Yoichi and Miyagikyo

Nikka Whisky Co. Hokkaido Plant

Hokkaido Yoichigun Yoichimachi Kurokawacho 7-6 Japan

Phone : +81 135 23 313

Fax : +81 135 23 2202

Nikka Whisky Co. Sendai Plant

Miyagiken Sendaishi Aoba Nikka 1 Japan

Phone : +81 22 395 2111

Fax : +81 22 395 2861

Nikka produce a number of bottlings of various ages, all under the Yoichi brand name.

The Nikka Whisky Company, and more specifically the Japanese Whiskey brand, Yoichi, has come to the Whisky worlds notice because of the award of Best of the Best to Single Cask Yoichi 10 year old in Whisky Magazine's awards in 2001. This award was given after 62 judges tasted 47 different Whiskies, including a number of other Japanese Whiskey brands, and judged Yoichi the best.

This recognition has created much attention for Japanese Whiskies ,and has given their industry some legitimacy that perhaps they did not have before.

Yoichi is classed as a single cask Whisky. This is where the spirit is taken from one barrel only, which in itself is a rare practice.

Each Whisky barrel or cask will have it's own unique characteristics, and hence the whisky produced will be unique.

Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2006

Plummy fruit is almost last amid a sea of salty, peaty malt. An enormous bouquet but amazingly well restrained, especially the oak. The sweetness is charming, and appears to depend on the smoky skeleton of the aroma. Quite breathtaking and truly fabulous.

Taste

A massive peat surge is immediately countered by an oaky driyness. But soon the peat returns in a kippery, salty style. Massive and chewy with an ever-increasing oiliness and sweetness.

Finish

Remains oily to the death with a crescendo of spice that dies off to allow wave upon wave of cocoa and that massive, chunky peatiness to cling to the roof of the mouth.

Conclusion

This is how a single cask should be: enormous and complex yet showing exactly what the distillery has to offer. Huge and uncompromising, this is a true classic among the world's single malts; just about unparalleled as a Japanese whisky.A massive peat surge is immediately countered by an oaky driyness.

But soon the peat returns in a kippery, salty style. Massive and chewy with an ever-increasing oiliness and sweetness.

Japanese Whiskey brands are now most definitely on the Whisky map and are well worth trying.

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