Worse than allocated bourbon on the secondary market Worse than the new travel retail Macallan aged in their top 1% of unicorn jizz seasoned casks Is Japanese fucking whisky for value for money. Japanese distillate tastes like urine. You let it wax on wax off for 12 years in a Mr. Miyagi cask and it becomes wonderful. But you can’t find any good properly matured Japanese whisky for less than $100 these days, and the really good ones are many hundreds to thousands of dollars. Liquor stores are pretty stocked with these NAS Japanese whiskies, however, strategically priced a smidge above entry Scottish single malts, and they are an absolute scam. This Miyagikyo I decided to give a try when I found it marked down to $60 (from $80). It’s single malt. It’s 45% ABV. It got some good reviews. What can go wrong? This is a tragedy. I imagine this is how urine tasted to doctors - back when they tasted urine and before the famous discovery of Frederick Banting - when a child was doomed to die; that sharp, sweet, acetone flavor betraying a pancreas that no longer made insulin. This Miyagikyo is a diabetic’s piss. Toki. Iwai. Yoichi. All these NAS’s taste like piss. I still found a use for this whisky. You can’t taste it before a whisky you love because it will spoil the palate, but you can taste it before a disappointing expensive whisky to make that whisky taste expensive again. Because of Miyagikyo, my Dalmore 18 was bottle-killed with some dignity. Because of Miyagikyo, I’m starting to work on my Macallan Rare Cask again; a bottle that I have not touched for 4 years. Just know that you cannot have just Miyagikyo and call it a night. You must erase that cheap, simple syrup, nail polish urine from your mouth with something a little more pleasant. Score: Minus (unforgettably bad) How much does a bottle cost?: $70-100 How much do I think a bottle is worth?: 0