This is reposted from Barreled on 7/7/18. I’m changing my original score of this to a 4/5. This is excellent whisky and I will be very sad when it is gone. I bought two bottles of this back in May when it was announced that they were out of aged spirit and would be discontinuing shipments. Finally decided to crack one open. This is only the second Japanese whisky I’ve had, the other being Nikka Pure Malt Black. It might not be from Scotland, but it’s pure scotch in every other way. The Hakushu distillery is located in central Japan, in the forests on the slopes of Mt. Kaikoma, between Nagoya and Tokyo. This whisky is s little unusual: it is a blend of three different whiskies produced at the same distillery, hence it is a single malt, but a “blended” single malt. The components are a non-peated whisky aged in American oak, a peated whisky aged in American oak, and a non-peated whisky aged in ex-sherry/Spanish oak. As such the peat level is very low (7-9 ppm), but is still noticeable. This whisky is bottled at 43% ABV and is a bright gold in the glass. It coats the glass with a nice thick oily coating, producing nice long legs. So far so good. The nose is pure scotch. Malted barley produces the classic grassy/floral nose, with some darker malty tones underneath. There is little to no alcohol burn, and just a hint of smoke if you try really hard. The palate is more grassy barley with some bright citrus (lemon) tones. Very little sweetness to me, I really couldn’t get much more out of it. It will be interesting to see how this tastes in a couple of weeks. The finish was really nice, medium length with light but noticeable smoke. If Islay scotches are smoky bbq meats with ash, this is a waft of bbq smoke from down the street on a warm summer evening that catches your nose and then is gone. Overall this is a very good whisky and I enjoyed it very much. I paid $90 for these bottles just over a month ago. The whisky market being what it is, the average retail price for this dram is now over $140. This is a good whisky, but I’m glad I didn’t pay $140 for it. Even $90 seems a bit high, considering I can get Lagavulin 16 for less. The price and the hype detract a bit from the score: 3.75/5. Kanpai!