Benrinnes 20 year old 1997 SMWS 36.148

The big Benrinnes Taste Off continues, shifting to the quadruplets, four 20 year old independent bottlings of Benrinnes that were all distilled on the 15th of August, 1997.

More than 220 casks of 1997 Benrinnes have issued forth from indie warehouses, many of which are from this same date, so for some reason Diageo released a significant parcel of casks from 15/8/97 to the world. This is a good thing. Here are just four of 'em:

Distillery: Benrinnes

Ownership: Diageo
Region: Speyside (Moray)
Independent Bottler: Scotch Malt Whisky Society
Age: 20 years (15 August 1997 - 2018)
Maturation: refill bourbon barrel
Cask#: 36.148, "La Vie En Rose"
Outturn: 174 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 55.7%
(from a Columbus Scotch Night event)

NEAT

The nose begins muted, mostly moss and brine, but then it picks up mint leaf. Then grapefruit. Then sour apple Jolly Ranchers. A ginger zzzzing wakes up the palate, followed by pears, circus peanuts, and hints of bitterness and lychee. The long finish matches the palate, along with a slight grassy side.

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

The nose becomes quite lovely with fresh lemons, orange blossoms, honey, and malt. Mellowing out, the palate focuses on pineapple, tangerine, sea salt, and tobacco leaf. It finishes with tangerines and caramel sauce.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Another good Benrinnes. The quirky, meaty Benrinnes character is on PTO here, replaced by a more comfy Speyside style. It seems to be two different whiskies when neat and diluted, both are fun drinks, but I'm leaning towards the 46%abv version right now. Onto the Blackadder on Monday...

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - ???
Rating - 86

Benrinnes 23 year old 1995 Cadenhead Small Batch

Get ready for five Benrinneses (Benrinnii?). Four of them are sibling casks distilled on the same day in 1997, bottled by three different companies.

Before the four, an older Benrinnes distilled in 1995...

source

Distillery: Benrinnes

Ownership: Diageo
Region: Speyside (Moray)
Bottler: Cadenhead
Range: Small batch
Age: 23 years (1995 - 2019)
Maturation: 3 hoggies

Outturn: 708 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 51.1%
(thank you to Dr. Springbank for the sample!)

NEAT

Oooooo, says my talking nose. Grapefruits, lemons, moss. Shortbread biscuits with toffee chips. Green bananas. It gets earthier, rootier, and brinier with time. Meanwhile, the palate is loaded with fruits. Lychee + kiwi + guava. A few blackberries and a little bit of soil. It finishes with earth, guavas, raspberries, and lychees.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or ⅔ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose becomes leaner, more mineral, with hints of honey and blossoms in the background. Going a similar direction, the palate tilts austere(!) with stones and pepper. The finish adds some sweetness to the minerals.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This whisky was a surprise and, I can say without hesitation, my favorite whisky from this distillery. I've never had a super fruity Benrinnes like this. What a gem! The crowd-sourced crew at Whiskybase appears to feel similarly when it comes to the score. Perhaps I should give this distillery more of a chance. It's a good thing that four more Benrinneseseses will follow...

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - I think it was €125 back in 2020
Rating - 89 (neat)

If it's Monday, this must be Japan

This morning I woke up in Japan. I was supposed to be here exactly three years ago, on an extended trip that I had planned for months, an excursion that was already carrying the weight of my emotional stability and mental health long before it had begun. It was to have begun during the last week of March 2020.

And then, to quote Bo Burnham, "the funniest thing happened."

My home and my marriage did not survive what followed, nor should they have. We postpone some truths for far too long and then end up suffering for it.

Life is very different now, and I have learned much more about myself and others than I ever wanted to know. Re-planning travel to Japan filled me with more fear than excitement, until something finally clicked in my brain. It was simple but also not: Just go to that country and enjoy the experience without trying to fill an abyss. Imagine that? Forget deeper meanings and searches, and just go.

I'll be documenting my time away, privately, for my children. Maybe some of it will show up here on the blog, maybe it won't. I've scheduled a quintet of whisky reviews for the next two weeks, and future reviews are already planned, so there shouldn't be much of a blip in content. But hopefully my beard will be fabulous upon my return.

Taste Off: Chichibu x Komagatake Malt Duo twice!

The Chichibu and Mars Shinshu distilleries did a fun thing, and I hope others will follow suit. Together they made a double malt (Chichibu + Komagatake), half was aged at Shinshu, half was aged at Chichibu, using the same mix of casks for the same amount of time. Two whiskies resulted.

I didn't even know this had happened until the opportunity arose for a double bottle split. Here are the stats:

Distilleries: Chichibu #1 and Mars Shinshu

Locations: Saitama Prefecture and Nagano Prefecture (right next to each other)
Owners: Venture Whisky and Hombo Shuzo Co. Ltd.
Age: allegedly around 5 years (2015 - 2021)
Maturation: bourbon, new US oak, and sherry casks
Outturn: 10000+ bottles and 10000+ bottles

(from a bottle split)

A Double Duo

Chichibu x Komagatake aged at Chichibu 53.5%abv	Komagatake x Chichibu aged at Mars Shinshu 54.0%abv
A fruity fruit nose! Kiwis, yuzus, orange blossoms, and plantains up top. Pineapple and cardamom pods underneath.	It has a very malty nose. Lots of Irish soda bread and malt crackers. Some saline and menthol, hints of taffy and florals. Feisty!
The tart and tangy palate starts with limes + apples (tart), and pineapple + chiles (tangy). It gets sweeter with time, but is less sweet than its sibling.	This one is a sweetie, with orange candy, barley, and "lemony heat" on the palate. Savory, salty, and yeasty hints arrive later.
It finishes tartly. Tart oranges and lemons. A bit of rosy florals.	Barley, clementines, and yeast make up most of the finish, with truffle salt and lychee in the back.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I would never have guessed that these two whiskies had the same ingredients. The Chichibu-aged carries plenty of that distillery's fruity style, while the Shinshu-aged double has a more direct barley hit. Shinshu's edition reads younger, but it's not harsh. Chichibu's edition may have revealed one of their secrets......a magic warehouse stuffed to the walls with fruit peels? With sherry and new oak casks that barely make a peep, these are both very good whiskies, so good that elected not to add water.

Dear Whisky World, more of this please! Clynelish x Ben Nevis, anyone?

RATINGS:
Chichibu x Komagatake (Ichiro's Malt Double Distilleries) - 88

Komagatake x Chichibu (Mars Whisky Malt Duo) - 86

Nikka Tsuru 17 year old blended whisky

I don't know much about today's whisky, but I could not pass up a chance to try a 17 year old Nikka thingamabob. "Tsuru" comes from the surname of Japanese whisky pioneer and Nikka founder, Masataka Taketsuru. Taketsuru = bamboo crane. Tsuru = crane. Cranes decorated the bottom half of the white phallic ceramic decanter when Nikka chose that format. The same birds adorned the stopper of Tsuru's glass bottle editions. The Tsuru line also had a cheaper NAS version for some time.

Some sites say the Tsurus were retired in 2016-2017, while other folks say they tried the whisky at Yoichi distillery not too long ago. Either way, I'm pretty sure the Tsurus were blended whiskies, acting almost like little siblings to the Taketsuru blended malt range.

Ownership: Nikka
Range: Tsuru
Type: Blended Whisky
Region: Japan (and others?)
Distilleries: Miyagikyo, Yoichi, and Nishinomiya (and others?)

Age: at least 17 years

Maturation: ???

Alcohol by Volume: 43%

(from a bottle split)

NOTES

The nose is a bit vague and blurry at first. Some nondescript fruits and florals, with peanuts and almonds, gentle toasted oak. But, the citrus fruit notes sharpen with time, baking spices appear, and at times it smells like a bag of mixed Kasugai gummies.

The Nishinomiya grain seems to control the palate. It's very sweet, with some oranges and cream(-ish) sherry. Sometimes ashy, other times cardboardy, but frequently bitter, it doesn't work well as a sipper.

The palate's sweetness dominates the finish. Black pepper, tannins, and tangy citrus stay far behind.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I probably should have put this in an (expensive) mizuwari, because that must have been its purpose. One can't help but compare it to Chivas 18yo, thinking of all the great malt content buried within the blend. It smells nice, but even 17 year old grain whisky smells nice, and a higher ABV may not have solved the palate. A standard 17yo Nikka blend sounds like a very good idea in the current marketplace (or always), so perhaps this could be resurrected with a little more Yoichi in the recipe, perhaps?

Availability - Secondary market
Pricing - ???
Rating - 77

Chichibu 2021 US Edition

I end this Chichibu week with a whisky I've eyed many times, and would have purchased blindly had it been $100 cheaper. Unlike the 2020 US Edition, the 2021 is not peated. And it has a bit more oak in the recipe. This time there are three new oak barrels, three new oak hoggies, and four first-fill barrels. Looks like Ichiro Akuto's crew is showing the US some love via the use of shiny, unsullied American oak. Will the spirit survive???

Distillery: Chichibu #1

Location: Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture, Japan
Ownership: Venture Whisky
Range: US Editions
Age: ???
Maturation: 10 casks, see above
Outturn: 2150 bottles
Exclusive to: USA
Alcohol by Volume: 53.5%

(from a bottle split)

NEAT

A burst of toasted barley reaches my nose first, followed by fruits similar to my fine single cask (okay, it's not MY cask, but gosh I wish it was): first kiwis and guavas, then citrons. Some lovely notes of roses, moss, ocean, and candied pecans pass through the background. A dunnage note leads the palate, followed by lots of sweetness via orange candy and National-Distillers-esque(!) butterscotch. It gains plenty of non-woody bitterness with time, as well as some caramel candy and chile heat. It finishes sweet and peppery, almost smoky, with some limes and caramel candy too.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or 1 tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose simplifies and focuses on kiwi, guava, candied pecans, and a bright mintiness. The creamy palate offers grapefruits, cherries, peach creamsicles, and a touch of barrel char. It finishes with maraschino cherries, limes, earth, and caramel candy.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Yes indeed, this is Chichibu for the American palate. It's almost like they mixed 10% great bourbon in with 90% classic 'Bu. And I like it. I don't think it's the distillery at its best, but all those fruits cannot be silenced, so it's still a powerful single malt. Though it's out of my price range, 8-10 year old Chichibu from a refill barrel sounds mighty fine right now. If I can source it, I will review it. But for now I take little issue with this American Chichibu.

Availability - Secondary market
Pricing - I'd rather not look
Rating - 88

Chichibu 2020 Peated US Edition

Chichibu has released one US Edition each year since 2018. Their 2019 version was dreamy, or, rather, "flabbergasting". That one was unpeated, while their 2020 Edition was peated. I enjoy both types of Chichibu spirit, so I've been looking forward to this one no less than Monday's pour, maybe even a touch more.

Though the bottle's label doesn't provide an age statement (though Whiskybase says five years), it does list the cask types and numbers of the whisky's ingredients: four first-fill bourbon barrels, three refill bourbon barrels, two refill Chibidaru (quarter casks), and one refill "wine" cask. At this point I trust this distillery's blending more than nearly any other producer in the world, so let's have at it!

actual abv: 55.5%

Distillery: Chichibu #1

Location: Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture, Japan
Ownership: Venture Whisky
Range: US Editions
Age: maybe 5 years old?
Maturation: 10 casks, see above
Outturn: 2109 bottles
Exclusive to: USA
Alcohol by Volume: 55.5%

(from a bottle split)

NEAT

Much like Yoichi's older malts, this Chichibu's nose is not overwhelming peaty, instead it's right in the Goldilocks Zone. A little bit o' farm, a touch of industry, and a few band-aids. Menthol, mango, and milk chocolate make up the rest. Uh-oh, the palate lands right in the Caol Ila / direct-fired Ardmore plane. Salty bonfire smoke, sweet oranges, and tart limes, with a bitter herbal rumble underneath. The citrus outlasts the smoke in the finish, while dried herbs and salt stay around even longer.

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

The nose becomes a little louder. More farm, more ocean, wet stones. Less industry. Hints of grapefruit and guava in the background. The palate reads very salty, almost brothy. Limes and minerals in the middle. Soil in the back. The mouthfeel has become surprisingly thin. It finishes with limes, salt, and minerals.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

A peated style seemingly tailored for my palate, this Chichibu could take on many of the better casks of the distilleries referenced in the notes above. It only shows its youth when diluted, while at full strength it seems like a 12-18 year old aged in 2nd-fill casks. The quarter casks and wine cask seem to have merged with the others without making a fuss, giving that spirit plenty of room to shine. Yep, another winner from Chichibu.

Availability - Secondary market
Pricing - ???
Rating - 89