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 blended whisky from Eigashima, the Hyogo distillery that trades as White Oak and sells under the Akashi name. Tokinoka means flower of time. Bottled at 40%, no age statement, built from malt and grain with cask finishing on top.
Where it comes from
Eigashima holds one of the oldest whisky licences in Japan, granted in 1919, four years before Yamazaki was built, though it only released a single malt in 2007 and distils whisky for a short window each year around its sake and shochu production.
The blends are where care is needed. Eigashima does not publish a component breakdown, and its blended whiskies have historically drawn on stock it didn't distil. There's also a well documented quirk in the range: the basic White Oak bottling for the Japanese domestic market has been made with malt whisky and molasses spirit, which wouldn't be classed as whisky in the EU, while the export version uses malt and grain. We haven't found a statement putting Tokinoka against the Japan Spirits and Liqueurs Makers Association standard. Treat the provenance as undisclosed.
How it's made
Eigashima's malt is lightly peated, and that faint smoke tends to show through even in the blends. Maturation for the Akashi blends runs across bourbon, sherry and shochu-seasoned American oak, with the shochu casks giving a distinctive savoury note. Cask specifics for this bottling aren't published.
What to expect
Light and sweet, with vanilla, citrus and a whisper of smoke, finishing short. At 40% it's a mixing whisky, and a decent one.
How it compares
Against Akashi Blue Label, the other Eigashima blend at this level, Blue Label gets more cask work and reads richer. Against the Akashi single malts, those are distilled on site and clearly specified. If you want to know what you're drinking from this producer, start with the malts.
