Shizuoka Pot Still W 2022 First Edition 55.50% NV

Professional reviews

Serge Valentin (89)

So not one of the 'Prologues' anymore. This one from the still that's direct-fired with wood. I like it that they would write about the origin of their barley, shouldn't the Scots do the same? Game? Colour: gold. Nose: starts with fresh paint, fresh putty and garden smoke, goes on with rather a lot of shoe and metal polishes. Lanolin, grapefruit zests, touches of sage, lovage and parsley, old-school embrocations, a feeling of UHU glue (our favourite brand), marzipan… With water: a pile of magazines. Lovely ink, carbolineum, new sweater (say Uniqlo while we're at it)… Mouth (neat): excellent, rather fat, much simpler on the palate, and yet no less good. Lemon, peat, glue. With water: the magic of good bourbon wood on good peat, which generates perfect citrus, as often seen on Islay. Perfect carving. Finish: long, a tad spicier. Excellent citrus once again, orange wine (I mean wine made out of oranges), tiny salty touch… Comments: a devilish malt, it's not often that this happens. Wonderful, pure simplicity.

Words of Whisky (87)

BOW (88)

The Shizuoka Distillery is located in the wooded hills west of the town of Shizuoka. And that city is about 1.5 hours by fast Shinkansen train, south of the center of Tokyo. Taiko Nakamura was inspired during a trip to distilleries in Scotland, and decided to build his own distillery near his hometown of Shizuoka. His wife Mika imports Scotch whisky with her company Gaia-flow. So they were already in buisness with the drink.
As an engineer, Taiko had his own installation company and he has used that knowledge to build a distillery that is very traditional on the one hand, and very modern on the other. As you walk through this beautifully situated distillery, you will notice the beautiful wooden washbacks, as well as the very modern return valves and sight glasses.
For the connoisseurs of Japanese whiskies, the name Karuizawa has almost a mythical meaning. The stills from this vanished distillery were part of Taiko Nakamura's plans when he designed the Shizuoka Distillery. Previously, he had acquired these stills at an auction. Unfortunately, however, the karuizawa stills were too bad to use, except for one.
The Shizuoka Distillery now has 2 stills that were made at Forsyth's in Scotland and 1 still that previously served at Karuizawa a long time ago.
The "old" Karuizawa still in is once again in production.
But the 2 "Scottish" stills are also special to say the least. Especially the “Wash Still” can be described as such. This is in fact heated directly with a wood fire in the boiler under the still. All day long, an employee is stoking the fire by adding logs to the fire.
Something that doesn’t happen anymore, but gives the whisky a special character.

The Shizuoka Pot Still W is distilled in the still fired directly with wood and produced with 100% imported barley. 70% of that is peated barley, this ultimately resulted in a fairly light whisky.
Tasting note:
Honey with cream and roasted bread in the nose. Then the mild peat scents come at play with exotic herbs and smoked gingerbread. In the taste; fresh biscuits with caramel and roasted nuts. All this is refined with peat smoke.
In the Finish, malty sweetness with a pinch of peat smoke that lingers for a long time.