Bought: Amazon, 5th December 2014
Ratings:
83.5/100 – Whisky Bible 2013
86/100 – Ralfy – His YouTube review here (April 2009)
The very first whisky book I got that started my collecting crazy was Ian Buxton’s ‘101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die’. My initial idea was to acquire all 101 until I realised that some were impossible to purchase in the UK. Clearly the author never meant for anyone to take his title seriously. And with another book mentioning 1001 whiskies, my liver is thankful I failed before adding a further 900!
Now, where was I?! Ah yes, the Yoichi 10yo is the last whisky mentioned in the 101 book. I might not have all of them but I feel a sense of completion by having the very last one. The history of the distillery is worth a read but Ian Buxton finishes with his tasting notes, which are:
Nose: Bold and direct, with peat evident. Light citrus notes.
Taste: Minty chocolate and orange oil. Creamy mouth feel and delicate peat smoke.
Finish: Sweetness, peat and some antiseptic notes in alternate waves.
I will look out for these when I try it.
I had to go back to the Whisky Bible 2013 to find the Yoichi 10yo, so it is probably a different batch to the version I have. Jim Murray expresses shock that the release he tastes isn’t as good as he’s tried in the past and concludes with “Pleasant. Drinkable. But dull.” In the 2009 edition of the Bible there were numerous batches of the 10yo listed, with the most recent scoring 89/100. I’m curious to see where my bottle falls in the varying scale of Yoichi, and is its demise from the Bible a sign that it’s been discontinued?! Surely not another distillery moving to non-age statement releases?!
Whisky Den 