Karuizawa Asama 1999-2000 Single Malt Whisky (no box) 700ml

WhiskyNotes.com, Aug 17, 2016
Nose: typical nose for younger Karuizawa, with a fair dose of rubbery notes and mushrooms. Then also tobacco leaves and wet oak. Some dates and nougat in the background. A bit of orange peel and leather. Not bad. Mouth: fairly light for a Karuizawa of course. Mostly on oranges, raisins and cinnamon. Still a light gunpowdery and rubbery note. Cardamom. Burnt brown sugar. A faint salty touch too. Finish: medium long, spicy, with some metallic hints and always that sulphury edge.

Karuizawa is one of the legendary whisky distilleries in Japan. It was founded in 1955 and situated on a beautiful vineyard in Asama of Karuizawa where is also a famous summer palace to Japanese.

Karuizawa is the smallest distillery in Japanese but its ambition is big. Karuizawa adopted the top standard in making of whisky. It used the famous barley Golden Promise, distilled in small batch and aged their spirit in finest Spanish sherry casks that made Karuizawa malt perfection in quality.

Although all these uncompromising principles made Karuizawa malt the masterpiece, it was irony that its persistence was unsustainable commercially at that time as the market was not ready to accept such a premium Japanese malt. Karuizawa distillery was stopped production in 2000 and completely closed in 2011.

Karuizawa’s old stocks are now the most precious and rarest Japanese malt ever existing in the market. It is foreseeable that Karuizawa malt, such a great, rare and classic but diminishing whisky will definitely becoming the treasures exclusively for the rich very soon .