Japanese Konara Oak Tree
The little White Oak Distillery has released it’s oldest expression yet. A 15 year old single malt that spent 12.5 years in Spanish Oak Sherry Casks then 2.5 years in Japanese Konara(Quercus Serrata) Oak Casks. Of course you are all familiar with Konara Oak aren’t you? Yeh thought not, me either. This is the first time that I know of, that this type of Japanese Oak Cask has been used to mature whisky. That fact alone makes this particular bottling a fascinating proposition.
Priced at Y10500 for a 500ml bottled and with an outrun of 795 bottles. I’m also glad to see that White Oak is sticking to it’s guns with their single cask releases and botting this one Non Chilled Filtered and No Artificial Coloring.
There seems to be a very small allocation for each of the retailers in Japan that stock this whisky, so if you see it and your keen on a bottle, they who hesitate most likely will miss out.
According to this book: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kPeIQtby-F8C&lpg=PA260&ots=CvOF_JabqJ&dq=Quercus%20Serrata%20whisky&pg=PA260#v=onepage&q=Quercus%20Serrata%20whisky&f=false
Yamazaki uses Quercus Serrata/Konara, as well as American White Oak and English/French Oak. This is strange because I always associate Yamazaki with using Mizunara (Quercus Crispula)….Often I see it referred to as Quercus Mongolica but I believe that is just a catch-all for all Japanese Oak…..So I wonder which one is it really, or do they even know or track the difference? Does it matter anyway?
Here is an interesting scientific paper on distribution of Crispula/Serrata in Japan and some other sub-types (dentata, aliena) using DNA analysis: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ggs/82/6/82_6_465/_pdf
It seems there is quite a lot of genetic variation (unless I’m interpreting this wrong)…so could there even be a taste difference in the same subspecies but from different populations/areas?! The anoraks must know!
Thanks for the info.
As it stands I couldn’t detect anything particularly distinct in the profile anyway. For the most part, reminded me of the of the 12 and 14 year olds.