Nose: Sweet with honey vanilla, sugar-coated oranges, then give it a minute for cherries and candied apple. Nothing hugely complicated.
Palate: Not as sweet as you may have guessed from the nose. It’s a bit more flat and balanced, nearly to the point of boredom. You’ll need to dig pretty deep to find some oak and green apple.
Finish: Things wrap up quickly with a slight hint of pepper spice right at the end.
This isn’t a bottle for people who want to slowly enjoy an aromatic, flavorful dram of beautifully crafted Japanese whisky.
But it is the only bottle of bonafide Japanese whisky you can reliably acquire in Japan for under 2000 yen. Japan certainly has other great grainy options for even these days in that range, but they technically aren’t Japanese whiskies.
Looking past the price, though, we find a whisky that has been made almost too drinkable, to the extent that you’ll find yourself grasping for something notable about it. Or forget all that, instead you’re grabbing the bottle to pour another serving.