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 in Hyogo, bottled under the White Oak distillery name at 50% with a sherry cask finish. The higher strength and the finishing work put it well above the everyday Akashi blends.
Where it comes from
Eigashima has held a whisky licence since 1919, longer than Yamazaki, though it only released its first single malt in 2007. It distils whisky for a short window each year around its sake and shochu production.
The blends are less transparent than the malts. Eigashima doesn't publish component breakdowns, and its blended whiskies have historically included whisky it didn't distil. The domestic White Oak bottling has also been made using molasses spirit alongside malt, which wouldn't qualify as whisky in the EU. We haven't found a producer statement putting this release against the Japan Spirits and Liqueurs Makers Association standard, so the provenance is undisclosed.
How it's made
The sherry finish is what separates this from the rest of the blended range, adding dried fruit and colour on top of whatever the base maturation gave. Bottled at 50%, undiluted enough to carry the cask influence properly, which the 40% blends can't. Eigashima's own malt is lightly peated and that smoke usually survives into the blends.
What to expect
Fuller and richer than the standard Eigashima blends. Dried fruit, raisin and nuts from the sherry wood over malt sweetness, with a faint smokiness and more grip on the finish than the 40% bottlings manage.
How it compares
Against Akashi Blue Label, which uses shochu casks then sherry and bourbon finishing at 40%, this has the same instinct with more strength behind it. Against the Akashi single malts at 50%, those are distilled on site and clearly specified. Against a sherried Scotch blend at the same strength, this is the more interesting curiosity and the less certain buy.
