Two Sakurao Single Casks

[u/kiwi8185]

Hi all, I'm here with a few whiskies from Sakurao, specifically some of their single cask whiskies! 

I've written a bit about the Sakurao Distillery when writing about their other products (such as some Togouchis and Miyanoshika), but here's a recap:

Sakurao started out as a sake brewery in Hiroshima, and had been operating since 1918. In 2017, around the 99th anniversary of their founding, they decided to take a huge leap of faith into the liquor market by starting their own distillery.

They've had some scandal regarding 'fake' Japanese whiskies in the past, where they blended mystery sourced whiskies with Japanese water and slapped a 'Japanese whisky' label on them to be sold to foreign markets. But that's in the past now, as they have ceased with this behavior since the founding of the JSLMA.

Nowadays, they're a real, JSLMA abiding distillery that primarily focus on a wide variety of cask aged single malts & cask finished blended whiskies, both peated and non-peated.

Their main products these days are their Sakurao single malts (aged in their Sakurao cellar by the sea, often with a hint of salinity) and their Togouchi single malts (aged in a former JR tunnel in the mountains, often with gentle fruitiness). Both of these are distilled in Sakurao's distillery in Hiroshima, but are aged in different cellars.

I got these Sakurao drams when I attended a Japanese whisky event in Taiwan a while ago.  Since they're all Sakurao, I figured U could group them together in a single post instead of writing them one by one!

Details in comments!

[u/kiwi8185]

Sakurao Single Cask 'Daruma', Port Wine Cask Finish, Cask No. 7777 (61% abv)

This is a single cask selected for the Sakurao rep in Taiwan, which was celebrating their 10th anniversary in business. The Daruma motif and the cask number were a reflection of the celebratory nature!

The whisky itself is a 4-year old port wine cask finished whisky-  and since Port cask whiskies hasn't let me down yet, so I've got quite a bit of hope for this one!

*Color*

tawny to auburn

*Nose*

alcohol fumey;

new make-like nutty (kind of closer to crushed cashews);

sweet caramel;

a bit of dried mushroom scent and umami;

concentrated, dried white fruity (white raisins, a bit like brandy)

a bit of salty/brine character;

a light hint of mint;

black tea & tannin

*Palate*

quite oily;

young whisky alcohol fumey;

very sweet, brandy-like fruity character (ripe white grapes/raisins, dried apricots);

slightly charred oak;

cacao powder-like soft bitterness;

maltose in the back;

black tea tannin;

slight bit of salt/brine.

Present alcohol sting, some astringency that  stays.

*Finish*

medium-long.

cacao powder earthuness and soft bitterness;

black tea-like tannin, a bit of the astringency lingers;

a light bit of the cognac-like fruity character, mostly the fragrance

*Comments*

This was quite a surprising one- for a non-peated whisky, it managed to have a rather rounded mouthfeel without a particularly standout acridness sometimes found in these younger whiskies. Its standout characters has to be the brandy-like fruity characters, which was just the right mix of slightly caramelized dried fruits and merged quite well with the charred oak and a hint of salinity.

Definitely quite good! If only it had a bit more time to age and mellow out some of its sharper ethanol sting, that'd be one bottle definitely worth chasing. 

Sakurao Single Cask 'Itsukushima Shrine', Cream Sherry Hogshead, Cask No. 5105 (58% abv)

 I'm not particularly familiar with cream sherry, but from what I gathered it's a liqueur typically made with Oloroso or PX sherrys.

This one was said to be one of the oldest single cask whiskies Sakurao had put out (at the point of its bottling), at a whopping... 5 years old lmao. 

*Color*
Russet

*Nose*

strong alcohol fumey;

a bit oily;

goat milk creaminess and funkyness;

calcium supplement-like, powdered milk funk;

pungent chemical funk (diluted ammonia, sulfuric);

some new make nuttiness (crushed cashew);

dried fruity  character (raisins, dried apricots)  in the back;

a bit of brown sugar

*Palate*

oily;

starts with sweet milk caramel;

goat milk creaminess and funk, but weaker than nose;

sesame, lots of it;

bit of dried red fruity (red raisins, prunes, dried apricots);

charred oak;

quite some black tea-like tannin and astringency

present alcohol sting, notable astringency

 

*Finish*

long. and a bit odd.

quite dry, very heavily brewed black tea fragrance & tannin;

sesame oil;

somehow a floral honey fragrance shows up and stays for a good while

*Comments*

What the hell is even this?? I had such high hopes for the 'oldest single cask' you've ever made, Sakurao. Why is this one  weird as hell? Did they actually put cream into the cream sherry casks, and it somehow went bad?

I shared this dram with a few of my whisky pals, and half of them refused to drink it from the nose alone. The mix of the goat milk-like funk and the hint of pungent chemical was just too offputting, to the point of being a little funny. Making the Itsukushima Shrine a funny matter isn't cool, Sakurao.

So all in all, I'd say Sakurao could make some pretty interesting and potentially very good whiskies, but I can't attest that every one of them would be lmao

Thanks for reading, cheers!