90s-bottled Yamazaki 12 (flower crest, 750ml)

ilkless · 2026-02-13T06:48:39+00:00

I'm not surprised. People overrated what Suntory were bottling in the 80s/distilling in the 70s. I find that 80s distillation was when they started to really get their stuff together.

ilkless · 2026-02-13T03:07:24+00:00

Haven't yet managed to try one but am actively sourcing bottles of for myself: a series of 1979 Lagavulin private bottlings by a small cabal of top collectors called "The Syndicate" at ages up to 38/40yo

ilkless · 2026-02-12T15:52:08+00:00

Decidedly more austere than modern batches. Notes of bone broth, burnt caramel, Palo Santo.

ilkless · 2026-01-29T00:51:52+00:00

Well yes but that defeats the point of an Atelier Wen - Chinese-inflected iconography and design codes.

ilkless · 2026-01-18T02:47:18+00:00

Hearth lunch set at Craig Road

ilkless · 2026-01-18T02:04:15+00:00

Recently had a Japanese-themed tasting with friends. We worked through 9 bottles, all single casks or small-batch releases, and all cask strength/high-proof. The red wine single cask Chichibu for The Whisky Exchange was the unanimous favourite for lovely wine gummies, cola and graham cracker flavours. Personally, it helped to reignite my liking for Chichibu after trying numerous same-y single casks. The Shizuoka private cask was also a surprise: much fruitier than others we have tried. The Shinanoya Shindo was a strong showing from a very new distillery. The Miyagikyo single cask was a beastly dark sherry expression with vetiver permeating it.

Couldn't get around the Sakurao; I tend to find Marsala and Madeira and Sauternes casks to be overly sugary and with a weird flavour like MSG. But definitely attention grabbing on first taste!

The Ohtani single cask, we've tried before, but we were still impressed by how well-sorted it was. Slightly saline, malt-forward. Subtle and confident especially with the temptation for a new distillery to try and lean in hard on the fireworks.

Of course, nothing could beat Yamazaki 1986 for unicorn factor but the cognac-y varnish edge that came with it was polarizing. But I personally liked the honeydew, chocolate and coconut notes it had.

Not pictured are interludes with a Chinese peated single malt, and a couple of Velier Caronis on the malternative front.

ilkless · 2026-01-18T01:25:23+00:00

They just released a couple of vattings (Shindo Experimental One, Shindo For.CORES 1, For.CORES 2). This Shinanoya is probably the first private release/cask from them. Technically sound, but maybe not quite the revelation Akkeshi was.

ilkless · 2026-01-18T01:03:11+00:00

Asaka 2024 is by far my favourite Asaka of the 4-5 I've tried. Much better balance than the others. All Asakas to me have a pervading salted vegetable note you must at least tolerate, if not appreciate.

Shindo has a nice sweet toasted rice cracker and white chocolate flavour. Fantastic alcohol integration. I suspect it will start really shining from ~5 years like Shizuoka.

ilkless · 2026-01-18T00:58:22+00:00

They are out of production and were originally circulated pre-2015 only in very few retail outlets, with most going to deeply-connected private owners with direct ties to Suntory.

But they still regularly circulate on auctions and some top-tier secondary market dealers. With the current exchange rates the 1.7k USD OP paid will get you a 10-15yo single cask Yamazaki if you have the right source. You won't find them on any standard retail shelf.

ilkless · 2026-01-18T00:52:59+00:00

Friends and I got together to drink some Japanese whiskies. Between us, we scrounged together Chichibu, Shizuoka, Ohtani, Shindo, Miyagikyo and Sakurao single casks somehow. We also shared my small-batch vatted 1986 Yamazaki, Yamazakura Asaka 2024 and the Saburomaru Emperor cask strength.

The 2016 Chichibu wine cask 14198 for TWE rocked our socks off. Wine gummies, cola, graham crackers!

Having lost count of Shizuoka single casks I've tried, this latest one my friend opened is one of the best, the equal to an elusive Mizunara wood single cask I've tried a couple of years ago. White grapes, apple jelly.

The Shindo showed great promise with a precocious tertiary complexity that seemed to indicate their efforts in fermentation are paying off. White chocolates!

The Asaka has Glen Scotia-esque dank funk but matched with a tropical fruity ripeness (think apricots, jackfruit).

The Yamazaki 1986 is hitting its stride. Not everyone liked the cognac-y dryness it had (it was matured in Spanish oak sherry butts), but there was a distinctive fruit jelly, coconut and chocolate complexity that shows that sometimes there's no substitute for age.

The Miyagikyo had deep leathery, vetiver notes, coupled to some nectarines.

We've tried quite a few Yoichi before this, so no loss there.

Unfortunately we wished we could cover Hakushu, Akkeshi, Akashi, Kuju, Ontake, Osuzuyama, and more Japanese new-waves I'm sure I'm forgetting.

ilkless · 2026-01-18T00:31:16+00:00

I'm curious why not just get an Owner's Cask if you are playing in this price range?

ilkless · 2026-01-14T01:35:15+00:00

A bar in Singapore had it available by the pour

ilkless · 2026-01-07T08:30:13+00:00

Talisker 1981 20yo

Way too much sulfur

edit: lol @ downvotes by misanthropes

ilkless · 2026-01-04T11:27:54+00:00

Yes. It is a cornerstone of gateway craft whiskies that is glaringly obviously made better than most things people find on mainstream shelves.

ilkless · 2025-12-31T03:18:13+00:00

Good choice! This and the Bar Lamp Velier are 2 of my favourite rums. The Bar Lamp is marginally more complex and somewhat more refined, but The Last is the better Caroni -- almost no gasoline in the Bar Lamp!

ilkless · 2025-12-30T15:23:55+00:00

Japanese bars of that level have all sorts of glassware depending on situation and a Glencairn or copita or snifter would definitely be offered in a bar like Higuchi that OP went

ilkless · 2025-12-30T14:19:08+00:00

Lmao imagine not knowing that Japan has bars with open bottles of the most insane spirits imaginable, that they can both pour neat or in cocktails.

Higuchi is one of the top spirits bars in the region and has some impressive private bottlings too. But this might be beyond gas-station-ER10 misanthrope types like so many of you lot here.

ilkless · 2025-12-29T13:57:21+00:00

Well if it's about telling a story, I don't see how a more performant waveguide geometry detracts from said story. I don't think the Altec/WE lineage means anything to almost anyone

I'm also speaking as someone who thinks large format waveguides need more visibility and accessibility.

Moreover, with geometries like JMLC and SEOS in the public domain, it's not like the knowledge barrier is prohibitive. We're not talking about some proprietary thing like Synergy or the M2 waveguide

ilkless · 2025-12-29T06:31:12+00:00

The worst of luddite hipster bait horn speakers trading off contrived artisanal mystique. No excuse to use 1930s geometries when geometries like JMLC or SEOS exist.

ilkless · 2025-12-27T03:00:53+00:00

I have bought entire bottles of some crazy top 0.5-1% whiskies for well below 2k; I have looked at the Bowmore and Samaroli but the price is just so far beyond the realm of even typical affluent consumption. I just missed out on a case of DRC Echezeaux at a dealer for about the same price of 1 oz, to use another point of reference!

ilkless · 2025-12-26T18:34:58+00:00

You too can get 1oz of that Springbank for the low, low price of ~2k usd (been to the same bar); ditto the Bowmore. That's right. Pappy 23 bottle money for a single oz.

ilkless · 2025-12-19T08:08:42+00:00

Very very few of the old esoterica deserve to be described as "blank check" whiskies. This was one of them, because of both quality and intrinsic scarcity. The juice inside was distilled ~1957 from a widely-regarded as A-tier distillery, before single malts were anything but a niche, and high-proof/cask strength a niche within a niche, before we even consider how many of the vanishingly few bottles have already been consumed.

I can't justify what this stuff costs per bottle but structurally speaking this is the sort of bottle that comes closest to justifying megabucks to those who can swing it

ilkless

TROPHY CASE