Karuizawa 35 Years Old 1980
Harbour City Exclusive
Karuizawa 35 Years Old 1980
The packaging adds a real sense of drama to this bottle, but the liquid inside is reputedly even more impressive. Limited to just 212 bottles and exclusive to Harbour City Hong Kong, it was bottled in 2015 from a single sherry butt (cask no. 4376) at a heady 60.1% vol.
The most collectable name in Japanese whisky, began life as a vineyard, beneath Mount Asama, which was an active volcano. Before the then owners, Daikoku-budoshu, decided to enter the world of whisky in 1955. A brave move given the domestic market was still relatively small and whisky was seen as being of Scottish origin. They looked to Scotland and created a modest-sized distillery that brought together the best of whisky. The emphasis was on quality, using the flavoursome Golden Promise barley that is rarely used today, stills that enhanced the distillate and then predominately sherry maturation, thanks to casks sourced from Spain. A lull in whisky demand prompted the distillery to be closed in 2000, if Japanese whisky was booming as it has been in recent times, Karuizawa would still be in existence. Instead, the remaining casks were purchased by Ichiro Akuto and over the years we’ve seen these hugely collectable releases arrive at retail and vanish soon after.
