Nose: Dry sherry, cocoa, cherry ripes, dried fruits, madeira, mixed peel, apricot jam, charred oak barrels. Water adds white pepper.
Palate: Cocoa, apricots, nutmeg, dried fruits, orange lifesavers, madeira cake, ginger bread, oak. Water adds some, fresh ginger, cola and praline.
Finish: Madeira, candied nuts, dried fruits, nutmeg, ginger bread, pepper, charred barrels.
Last Word: Old school sherry cask whisky. Think of a cask strength Macallan from yesteryear. What, no Christmas cake you say. It would have been a cliché if I had noted that. At any rate, this is excellent.
Rating: 92/100
I managed to get the last bottle that Claude Whiskies had listed on their Rakuten site.
I must say I was impressed with this – just a lovely sherry cask.
Glad you got one Alan!
Happy New Year !
Thank you for this very nice blog of yours, may 2014 be full of nice japanese drams !
These recent Komagatake reviews make me really curious about Mars too – too bad it’s almost impossible to find any in Europe. Maybe one day…
Happy New Year and thank you. I’m sure you will get plenty more Karuizawa over there at least for this year.
Like a “cask strength Macallan from yesteryear” – that sounds great, Brian. I am becoming more and more intrigued by Shinshu Mars distillery!
Hi Pierre. I’ve tasted 30 different whiskies from Mars Shinshu and I am continually intrigued by their offerings. Not everything works, as expected from a distiller with such a small output and interesting history, but when they get it right(which they do often), they produce whisky as good as any distillery.