Akashi 10-year-old (Sherry Butt # 105206) / 60% / 0.5l

White Oak Distillery is located in the town of Akashi in Hyogo Prefecture.

It was built in 1984 by Eigashima Shuzo, a company that obtained a license to distill whisky in 1919, four years before the Yamazaki distillery was built. Eigashima Shuzo's main source of income is still sake and shōchu, and whisky is currently distilled seven months of the year. The Akashi brand includes both blended and single malt whiskies, the latter distilled from malt with a minimal concentration of phenol compounds (around 5 ppm) and aged in bourbon, sherry and brandy casks. The Akashi 10 years old presented here is one of the company's oldest offerings, aged in a sherry butt no. 105206 and bottled without chill filtration at 60% abv in 2018.

Nose : red plums, marasca cherries, blackcurrants, jasmine tea, Christmas fruit cake, a drop of balsamic vinaigrette, black pepper, traces of burnt rubber and oak.

Palate: cherries, plum jam, blood oranges, grapefruit, milk chocolate, nutmeg, dried herbs, a dash of pepper and sherry-soaked oak.

Finish: quite long, with notes of sherry, raisins, bitter orange jam, leather, tobacco, mint leaf and oak.