Yamazaki Mizunara 2014

Yamazaki Mizunara 2014, NAS, 48 %

Yamazaki Mizunara 2014

On our lovely whisky journey in Japan the summer of 2014 we certainly got to taste a lot of whiskies in many nice bars. The first bar we visited on our journey was the Scotch Malt Whisky Society bar at Park Hotel Tokyo, see my husbands review from yesterday. The second place was Bar Moonshine.

Bar Moonshine had The Yamazaki Mizunara 2014. I had not tasted that one before, we have previously tried the Puncheon 2013 and Bourbon Barrel 2013 though. The Mizunara Cask Edition 2014 came in a total of 1600 bottles.

Nose: I was met by a really nice smell! Vanilla, peaches and ripe apples. To sum it up: Fruity! Then an interesting smell made it's way through the fruitiness: "Kongen af Danmark" - hard candy with flavor of licorice and malt. With water added it turned into a very nice summer whisky. I hope you know what I mean.

Taste: The taste was fruity as well. Very full, with a lot of spices and sugar. With water added it was more fresh, light and tasted like summer. Maybe some mint to make it even more fresh.

Finish: In the end the fruitiness disappeared. Ginger was dominating and the whisky was quite dry and woody, and oily at the same time. With water added it was less dry and oily, and the mint was back.

Comment: This was a really nice and interesting whisky. Not very balanced though, but that does not bother me. I would say that adding water really changed the character of this whisky. As some of you may remember, I rarely add water to my whiskies. Lately I have tried to do so, just to experience the difference water can make. And this time it was very interesting, in a good way!

Score (87/100)

- Tone