Nose: Young and spirity. Japanese pears fermented in cloudy sake. Loads of grunt. Apple cider, grilled pork, heavily lacquered teak, tobacco, icing sugar, white peaches.
Palate: Actually quite light compared to the nose. Vanilla, banana, oak, tobacco, toffee, pepper, fermented pears. Fairly simple.
Finish: Creamy nuts, vanilla, banana, icing sugar, pork fat.
Last word: Young but fun.
Rating: 85/100
I quite enjoyed this, Brian. Thanks for the introduction. As you said it was “young but fun” but I got a lot of satisfaction from it. When I tried it at the same bar it was from the remaining quarter of the bottle – not sure if makes that much of a difference but I really enjoyed it. I actually thought there was no need to add water as the palate was nice enough with out it. Although I did for experimentation and it did add one or two extras to the nose. Lovely stuff, shame I’ll never be able to own a bottle. I actually preferred this in comparison to some older Hanyu’s to be honest. Great notes!!
Yes a bottle is out of my reach price wise now Clint. Well more to the point, I would find it difficult to pay 300 bucks for a 5YO. I had always wanted to try it myself, so it was great to find a bar that still had one and was selling drams such a rare whisky as such a fair price.