I'm mostly new to Japanese whisky. I had a flight one night with the 3 most popular ones (including Yamazaki) and this one stood out to me. Easily drinkable,silky smooth with a sweet caramel finish. And I swear, to my tastes, it's has a nice smokyness that makes it tast a lot like scotch than any other (non-scotch) whisky I've tastes so far. Beautyful bottle too. While I really, really like this Japanese whisky, $65 is a bit much to pay for it though.