Things I Really Drink: Hatozaki Finest Blended Whisky

Not every TIRD is a gem, but today's TIRD is of some interest. From the Kaikyō (not to be confused with the Kaiyō brand) Distillery, this blend is nearly colorless, looking almost like vodka in the glass. I appreciate companies that show little interest in e150a.

The distillery was built at the Akashi Sake Brewery and seems to be owned by a Swedish company that also has its hooks in the Torabhaig and The Borders distilleries as well as the Mossburn bottlers.

As for the blend, the official site says the batches have a minimum 40% malt content, and contain whiskies up to 12 years of age. Since the distillery went online five years ago, we're all left to guess where the actual liquid comes from. I did notice one thing of interest: My bottle's label says "Finest Japanese Whisky", while the official site's bottle label says "Finest Blended Whisky". One can only wonder the size of the carbon footprint on this one...

Brand: Hatozaki
Ownership: Mossburn Distillers
Distilleries: ???

Country: ?????
Type: blend
Age: minimum three years old

Maturation: maybe "Bourbon, Sherry cask, some Japanese native Mizunara oak barrels and some hybrid casks including those with cherry wood heads", though that's unofficial

Alcohol by Volume: 40%

NOTES

Yep, the casks are scarce in the nose. Barley, yeast, sugar and VOCs arrive first. Then fresh lemons and wheatgrass. It gets very yeasty with time.

It has a light watery texture, but is bereft of common cheap blend ugliness on the palate. It's moderately salty and grainy, with a small dose of confectioner's sugar. But its gin-like juniper note gives the whisky its own character.

It finishes grainy but not grim. It's slightly peppery with a dash of graphite.

It completely vanishes into a highball, which isn't the worst thing. One may need to be more conservative with the soda water and bitters than I was. But this stuff vanished quickly in the late summer.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I respect the release of something so close to the grain, so far from the oak, and without aggressive coloration. It's better than any cheap NAS Scotch blend, and more pleasant than many of the age-stated ones. It's probably designed to be light as air, and thus succeeds. The finish falls short, probably due to maximum dilution and youth, keeping this stuff from getting into the B- range. But if it keeps its current price point I'd consider getting another bottle next summer to see how it competes with Suntory's Toki.

Availability - Possibly several hundred US retailers
Pricing - $35-$50 in the USA
Rating - 78

Kaiyō 8 year old "K&L Exclusive" cask 543

Onto the last of the three Kaiyō, then maybe I'll get to a pair of Japanese blends before the week is out. The Sheri was better than expected, Cask 541 was Craftier than expected, so will Cask 543 will be ???er than expected?

Brand: Kaiyō
Ownership: Harvey the Pooka
Type: Vatted, or Blended, Malt
Country: Japan
Age: 8 years old

Bottled: 2019 or 2020

Maturation: 7.5 years in Mizunara oak then one year in a ruby port pipe

Cask #: 543
Exclusive to: K&L Wine Merchants
Alcohol by Volume: 56%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

The nose begins with a clunky combo of caramel, metal and saline, but it blossoms with time. Apricot jam, honey, blackberries, black peppercorns and a touch of tawny port. The palate feels almost fizzy. And it's a real sweetie. Lots of black cherry soda and lime candy. Mild bitterness in the background. It finishes with black cherry and flowers. Plenty of sugar and just a little bitterness.

DILUTED to ~46%abv, or 1¼ tsp of water per 30mL whisky 

Apples, cardamom and honey in the nose's fore, a hint of coffee grounds in the back. It's much oakier now, with wood spice, tannins, pepper and bitterness. It finishes with a green oak bitterness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Three Kaiyōs, three mizunara maturations smothered by other casks. That Japanese oak is rare and expensive, so I'm not sure what the point of using it is as long as it gets killed off in each release. Despite that mystery, I enjoyed cask 543 as a dessert malt. It's very sweet and juicy, but that's the port pipe talking. Dilution harms the palate, so I encourage you to keep this one neat.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - $99.99
Rating - 81 (neat only)

Kaiyō 8 year old "K&L Exclusive" cask 541

Kaiyō, the Japanese whisky brand with curious origins, has range of whiskies with names that borrow the definite article convention of certain Scotch distilleries. There's The Sheri, The Peated, The Single and The Signature. They've also rolled out several single casks for a trio of American whisky retailers. I have samples of the pair of K&L casks. First up, the refill hoggie finish...

Brand: Kaiyō
Ownership: The Easter Bunny
Type: Vatted, or Blended, Malt
Country: Japan
Age: 8 years old

Bottled: 2019 or 2020

Maturation: 7.5 years in Mizunara oak then one year in 2nd-fill hogshead

Cask #: 541
Exclusive to: K&L Wine Merchants
Alcohol by Volume: 56%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

Eau de vie mixes with golden delicious apples, white peaches, toasted oak and saline in the nose. It gradually trades the eau for flowers blossoms and a touch of cream soda. The sharp, hot, sweet and floral palate is very barley-forward, reading like a mix of lemons, grass and pilsner. It finishes with sweet and tangy citrus, a little bit of metal and a lot of black pepper.

DILUTED to ~46%abv, or 1¼ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose is all apples and pears in caramel sauce. Now loaded with caramel, the palate reads almost like a Canadian whisky, just caramel, vanilla, metal and black pepper. The finish is just one big extra-sugary caramel blanket.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Mizunara casks are usually very subtle. In cask 541, the Japanese oak has been overwhelmed by the spirit (not a bad thing) and the American oak (not a good thing), appearing only slightly in the nose. What we're left with is a Craft whisky. It's an unfinished sentence with an exclamation point at the end. While yesterday's The Sheri felt more "produced", it also seemed more complete, a benefit that well-blended batches often have.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - $99.99
Rating - 79

Kaiyō The Sheri, First Edition

No, Kaiyō did not distill any of this week's whiskies. Kaiyō is a négociant crossed with an NDP, wrapped in a shell corporation. If you don't believe me, please read this very thorough, and kind of bananas, post at Nomunication.jp. (Proper respect to Richard on that one.)

What I can say this week's three Kaiyō whiskies is that they're probably Japanese single malt that has been teaspooned with another (Japanese?) single malt. They can't call them a single malt because of that silly teaspoon and they can't call it Japanese because it was aged on the ocean part-time. But the bottle's label has kanji on it and a Keeper of the Kiddish Quaich is in charge of blending the stuff.

Are you still with me? If so, you're not drinking enough.

Brand: Kaiyō
Ownership: hopefully the IRS knows
Type: Vatted, or Blended, Malt
Country: Japan
Maturation: Oloroso + PX + Mizunara Casks
Age: NAS
Bottled: 2019
Exclusive to: not Japan
Alcohol by Volume: 46%
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

The nose starts with a combo of anise, oranges, grape juice and flower kiss candy. And it......works. It expands with time, picking up marzipan, cherry lollies, dried cranberries and Crème de cassis.

A creamy mouthfeel brings cherry cola, tart oranges and a hint of rosy florals in the palate. Hints of oak spice and semisweet chocolate stay in the background.

It finishes with tart and tangy oranges, oak spice and a touch of coffee.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Much to my surprise this turned out to be a very drinkable thing, and never gets too sweet. In fact, it's comparable in quality to many ≤12yo heavily sherried scotches. I doubt you'll find much from the mizunara casks since they're usually subtler than sherry-seasoned casks, and Kaiyō had a heavy hand on the sherry here, possibly to make sure the whisky was true to its name. I'd buy a bottle were it half its price.

Availability - Still around in the US
Pricing - $120-$140
Rating - 84

Frysk Hynder 4 year old 2017 Dutch Single Malt, cask 255B

Located in Friesland, Netherlands, Us Heit Distillery produces a flock of liqueurs and its own single malt, Frysk Hynder. They've released scores, if not hundreds, of single casks, the majority of which have been reduced to 40%abv. Many of the casks have been seasoned with "Red Wine", with others having received the sherry or cognac treatment. Today's Frysk Hynder spent its time in one of those "red wine" casks, and was bottled one month before its fifth birthday.

Distillery: Us Heit Distillery
Ownership: the van der Linde family

Brand: Frysk Hynder

Region: Friesland, Netherlands

Age: 4 years old (3 April 2017 - 3 March 2022)
Maturation: Red wine

Cask #: 255B

Outturn: ???

Alcohol by Volume: 40%

(sample pilfered at an event)

NOTES

On the nose I'm finding raspberries, orange oil, white bread, lots of eggy sulfur, even more Velveeta slices, and I don't want to smell it anymore.

Prunes, metal and tissues arrive first in the palate, followed by corn syrup, ginger ale and burnt saltines.

If finishes burnt and bitter, but brief.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This whisky was wrong on many levels. I snooped around to find out if any of their other whiskies had issues, and quickly discovered that the Frysk Hynder brand gets an F as its Whiskybase Ranking. To be fair, those rankings go down to G (why?). Anyway, I'm assuming the whisky gets bottled so young because the casks prove fatal beyond five years, which may be same the reason for the maximum dilution. The palate is very strange and unpleasant though not horrifying, but the nose is nearly nauseating. I will not apologize for the alliteration. This is the second worst whisky I've had this year.

Availability - ???
Pricing - ???
Rating - 61

Ninety 20 year old Canadian Rye Whisky

Originally named Sunnyvale Distillery, Highwood Distillery was built in High River, Alberta, 37 years ago. In 2005, the distillery's owners bought Potter's Distillers, an NDP/broker with a good stash of its own Canadian casks. Using both sources, Highwood Distillers currently bottles a wide range of whiskies and flavored-whiskies, two of which tilt the Canadian scales at 45%abv, a 5 year old rye and a 20 year old rye, both of the Ninety (as in proof) brand. I have a 2oz sample of that 20 year old rye right here...

Company: Highwood Distillers

Brand: Ninety

Distillery: Highwood Distillery (and perhaps others)
Region: Alberta, Canada (and perhaps others)
Type: Rye
Age: at least 20 years
Maturation: Bourbon barrels for the first two decades, then six months in sherry casks
Alcohol by Volume: 45%
Chillfiltered? Probably
e150a? Probably

(from a bottle split)

NOTES

The nose begins lightly fruity and floral. Apples and peaches. Wheated bourbon and Nillas. It gets quirkier with time, picking up notes of Dove soap, Loch Lomond-type funk and shoe polish.

The palate is very very sweet. Root beer, vanilla and loads of caramel blanket the foreground. Mocha, neutral grain spirit and a hint of bitterness lie below.

Caramel, mint extract and mocha fill the cloying finish.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

The pleasures of Canadian whiskies largely escape me. Perhaps Ninety would fare better next to Canadian Club's Rye, but Lot No. 40 whups it royally in a side-by-side. The enjoyable nose does rescue Ninety's score from the D-range. But this really seems like caramel-flavored whisky, the resulting palate made for sweeter teeth than mine. Not a great week for international whiskies so far...

Availability - Canadiana
Pricing - 60-70USD(?)
Rating - 74

Hammer Head 30 year old 1989 Czech Single Malt, cask 378

Obligatory

When I reviewed the 20yo nine years ago, I thought Hammer Head single malt was a once-in-a-lifetime little tchotchke. Then came a 23 year old, a 25 year old, two 28 year olds, and now a 30 year old that costs $500.

For those who haven't heard the tale, here's the recap: on the brink of the Velvet Revolution the Czechoslovakian communist government-run Prádlo distillery cranked out some batches of single malt spirit made from local barley. Once bottled, two decades later, the whisky was named after the Hammer Head mill that had ground up the barley back in 1989.

Clearly it wasn't just a couple casks. The first release alone had an outturn of 80,000 bottles. And now, 30 years on, there have been a few single casks. All but two of the releases have been at strengths between 40.7% and 43.7%abv, yet today's 30yo weighs in at 51.2%abv. It's not chillfiltered, but I see no claims about its coloration. I don't know what to expect here, but I'm happy to try 30 year old Czech whisky any day!

Distillery: Prádlo Distillery
Ownership: STOCK Plzeň-Božkov s.r.o.

Brand: Hammer Head

Region: Prádlo, Czech Republic

Age: 30 years old (1989-2020)
Maturation: Czech oak casks

Cask #: 378

Outturn: 300 bottles

Alcohol by Volume: 51.2%

(from a bottle split)

NEAT

At first there's a unique mix of hazelnuts, tobacco and steel on the nose. A little bit of ocean brine drifts through the background, golden raisins and orange liqueur fill the midground. The palate is intensely woody, or should I say woodsy. It's more forest-like than generic oak. The bitterness is almost Cynar-like, with heaps of black pepper and smoked paprika floating on top. It finishes a bit tougher, with bark, ash and dry soil

DILUTED to ~46%abv, or ¾ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose has shifted a bit. It's more floral, and some grape juice shows up. Otherwise it's all barrel char and peanuts. Yeeeeeesh, the palate. It's all woody bitterness. The finish feels almost unsafe with its heavy acridity and bitterness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

The whisky's nose is very sniffable, when neat. The palate is a quirky curio, when neat. Its finish doesn't terrify, when neat. But it's nigh undrinkable when diluted. If this was one of their honey casks, then I sincerely hope there won't be a 35 year old Hammer Head. It was a cool brand, but this stuff is all oak juice. If casks remain, perhaps they can be blended with the current Prádlo malt for a fun hand-in-hand communism + capitalism vatting. I'm going to be kind with the score here, but I'd be okay with never again trying another pour of 1989 Hammer Head.

Availability - In the US of A, of all places
Pricing - $500(!)
Rating - 77 (when neat, 64 when diluted)