Kaiyō Japanese Mizunara Oak

I can sit and smell this all day. The mizunara aroma permeates like a garden full of jasmine. Highly floral, incense like. The nose alone is a 5 out of 5. The palette is a few notches down though, unfortunately doesn’t live up to the nose. The jasmine garden becomes more waxy, honeycomb and shortbread biscuits. I can see why Mizunara is generally more expensive than sherry or ex-bourbon. It’s highly porous, making it quite difficult to work with as compared to the others. But the aroma it imparts...just amazing. Thanks to @LeeEvolved for this generous pour

Hot cinnamon spice and faint pastry dough in the muted nose. Flavor is muted and sweet. Golden fruit gets flooded by light peat. Overall, it’s just lacking richness. Mouthfeel is really thin too. Don’t get the high score.

Tasted on 4/17/2019

It’s been a little while since I’ve opened a bottle of Japanese whiskey and I’ve had this bottle along with it’s sister companion- the cask strength version, for almost 6 months. I found these online stateside out of Pennsylvania for $54 (and $84 for the CS version). This NAS Japanese whiskey is relatively new to the scene, but it has been caught up with the Asian whisky craze that’s sweeping the whisky world. This stuff disappeared from shelves just as quickly as I had found it. I knew I should’ve bought 2 of each but I wasn’t sure of the Kaiyo name at the time. Boy, I wish I would’ve just went ahead and grabbed another pair. These are both fantastic whiskies. This pours shiny, new gold in the taster. It’s very oily and produces sparse, thin legs and watery drops when you give it a spin. The nose is hay and dried oak at first sniff, but given 10-15 minutes it opens up beautifully with tons of tropical fruits and light floral notes. The nose did suffer over a few weeks with oxidation- most of the sweetness went away and I was left with mostly banana bread and light spice. The palate really showcased the Miz oak- honey, berries, fresh cut cantaloupe melon. Nutmeg and cinnamon came across mid way through the sip and there was some youthful zip and light black pepper at the tail end. The ABV cut into the sweetness and kind of struck an unbalanced cord into the entire flavor profile. It didn’t ruin it, but it did kill the sweetness a bit too early IMO. The finish capitalized on the spicy aspect: cinnamon heat and black pepper led the charge and it was slightly harsh, warm and drying before leaving a slightly nutty aftertaste lingering on. The length was medium and the dryness closed things out quite well. Overall, this reminded me of Yamazaki a little bit (the tropical fruits and overall juiciness) and made me wish I had my bottle of Yama 18 open so I could really confirm the similarities I had swirling in my head. The harshness and youthful aspect can’t hold a candle to the Yamazaki, obviously- but this was a great value for your dollar at less than $55 and the cask strength was even better (review coming soon). If you can find this on shelves without the insane Japanese whiskey mark-up I highly recommend it. 4 stars all day long, and maybe a .25 star bump for the price point. Cheers, my friends.

Clean and sweet