Yamazaki Aged 18 Years Limited Edition

Style: Woody and Red fruits

Rating: ☆ [Recommended]

Nose:

Raspberry sorbet seeping into freshly sharpened, incensed sandalwood. Strawberry cream dazzles, orchard fruits, followed by a touch of Goji berries and peppermint to bring up the drier side. Vanilla barley pushing up from the back. White oak gradually takes over, finishes with a brush of honeycomb.

Palate:

The raspberry tartness is nicely polished and pieced into orchard fruitiness. The sweetness is loosely wrapped around the white oak core. Strawberry cream sweeps across, followed by five spices, vanilla barley and coconut shreds. Herbal overtone, sandalwood smoke and sawdust spiralling up, then mellowing down to a vanillic form, honey oat, finishes with a small serve of custard.

Finish:

Strawberry yoghurt, malt biscuits and black currants all served in a sandalwood bowl.

Thoughts:

A Yamazaki showing more of the (Mizunara?) wood facet, is there something to do with the extra wooden box packaging?! Supplemented with red fruits, the spirit remains a certain level of freshness and “lightness” which keeps the expression in a decent shape. Probably a tad oaky (or to be more precise, woody) for some, but if you dig oak/ probably Mizunara in this case, you will like this. 1 star but not a big one for me.

[43% | Original Bottling | Limited Edition | Circa 2016 Bottled | *-]

Originally published on Instagram