Hakushu 12 yo
Hakushu is a Suntory distillery. An earlier post talked about how Japanese distillers being somewhat hampered by the lack of a practice of cask trading, have had to build their distilleries with lots of different still shapes, different wash backs and tuns. and use different yeasts and fermentation times to produce different styles of spirit.
Suntory did all that with this behemoth (6 million litres!) when it was built in 1970 with 24 stills. Hakushu is also aesthetically located on a high plateau, set amid rock and deep forest of Mount Kaikomagatake, backed on three sides by three mountain ranges with Mount Fuji within view. This particular spot not only makes Hakushu’s elevation one of the highest (700m) for a distillery, but also gives it access to excellent soft water.
Hakushu was expanded with a second distillery, called Hakushu East, with 12 stills on the same premises in 1981, after which the original Hakushu stopped production. The whisky produced at Hakushu now comes from the newer distillery.
Hakushu 12 yo
Nose: Quite some malt and some spirit, but when the scents emerge it’s fantastic – Grass and bark, wet leaves and misty mornings. Fresh compost and roots. Something very vegetal, like bell peppers or even unripe fruit – sappy but a clean sap as opposed to something tannic and astringent. Also some old scented wax at the back of the nose.
Palette: Medium light oil weight, sweetish and earthy. Pine cones. Rhubarb and loads of dry herbs (parsley?) And a firmness like rucola, but not particularly pungent. Charcoal? Mushrooms?
Finish: Medium short, dry and vegetal – that rucola taste again. Delicious stuff.
Serious quality for a 12 year old! Excellent presence and the flavours – it’s hard to make green flavours sound delicious but its really quite tasty. My 50 ml sample went down too easily.
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