Prices
Prices and stock come from each retailer's website. Check with the store before you buy.
More from this distillery: All Akashi (Eigashima) whiskies and prices
About
What it is
A five year old single malt from Eigashima in Hyogo, matured in ex-red wine casks and bottled at 50%. One of the cask series where the distillery runs the same spirit through different wood and releases each separately.
Where it comes from
Eigashima has held a whisky licence since 1919, longer than Yamazaki, though it only started releasing single malt in 2007. The malted barley is imported, commonly from Scotland. That doesn't affect compliance, since the Japan Spirits and Liqueurs Makers Association standard is about where distillation, maturation and bottling happen and requires Japanese water, not Japanese grain.
The company also bottles blends containing whisky it didn't distil, so the distillery name alone doesn't settle the question. We haven't located a producer statement for this bottling.
How it's made
Distilled on the Seto Inland Sea coast at Akashi in a small operation that makes whisky for only a few weeks a year, around its sake and shochu production. The malt is lightly peated. Red wine casks bring tannin, colour and dark fruit, and they're a more forgiving match for young whisky than white wine wood, because there's more in the staves to work with. Non-chill filtered and no colour added.
What to expect
Red berries and plum with a tannic grip, over the malt sweetness and a faint smokiness underneath. The colour is deeper than the age suggests, which is the wine wood rather than caramel. At 50% it's warm and a little rough, in the way a five year old at that strength usually is.
How it compares
Against the white wine cask releases, this is the fuller and fruitier one. Against the sherry cask versions, sherry gives dried fruit and nuts where red wine gives fresh fruit and tannin. Against the sake and shochu cask releases, those are the genuinely unusual ones in the range and the reason Akashi is worth exploring at all.
