YOICHI SINGLE MALT 10 YEAR
2024 releaseMASH BILL – 100% malted barley
PROOF – 90
AGE – 10 years
DISTILLERY – Nikka
PRICE – $175
WORTH BUYING? – Yes, once in a while.
When I first tried the standard Yoichi release, for the price I thought it was fine. It has a nice creamy texture, with custard and cream notes, smoke and soft peat, seaside notes of sand and salt, and faint tropical fruit notes like pineapple and mango. It’s very subtle and easygoing, with an overall earthiness to it. Not a star on its own, Yoichi seems to me a good accompaniment to a meal.
I’ve certainly not explored Japanese whisky as much as I have other regions. Japanese whiskies tend to be quite expensive, and generally offer subtler flavor profiles. If I’m going to pay a high price, I’m more interested in robust flavor experiences.
That said, I do have an appreciation for subtler experiences in other areas of life. Japanese culture has intrigued me for this reason since I was a small child. I have always been attracted to the ascetic Japanese approach to design. The clarity and complexity of thought and emotion that can come from a few very carefully chosen details is extraordinary. This tendency can be seen in Japanese gardens, architecture, artwork, cocktails, even social interactions. A modern Tokyo district like Shinjuku, with its onslaught of neon and video, rebels against traditional Japanese asceticism. But even there the attention to detail is keen.
In addition to high prices and subtle flavor profiles, another thing that’s kept me away from Japanese whisky is the industry’s history of vague and misleading labelling, with imported scotch whiskies getting blended and bottled by Japanese non-distiller producers who then advertise their sourced product as “Japanese.” It was only in February 2021 that the Japan Spirits & Liqueurs Makers Association announced a set of agreements outlining new standards to reflect greater transparency and authenticity. These are not laws, as with American bourbon and rye, merely agreements to which Japanese distilleries might or might not agree to adhere. Nikka has agreed.
Then a 2023 visit to Japan refreshed my interest in Japanese whisky. I hadn’t been back to Japan since 1995, when I moved there for a period of time to teach English. Back then I was not at all a whisky drinker. But on my more recent trip, I certainly availed myself of the local whisky and cocktail bar culture.
So when I recently came across this bottle of the Yoichi 10 Year priced at msrp, I thought why not?
Here we are, two days after uncapping and three pours into the bottle. These brief notes were taken using a traditional Glencairn.
COLOR – straw and honey yellows, made slightly plastic by added color (C’mon Nikka, you don’t need that stuff.)
NOSE – creamy custard, salty taffy, vanilla, subtle pineapple and mango, fine sand, oak tannin, a whiff of smoke
TASTE – richer and darker than the nose, the same notes amped up a notch and leaning now more into the sweet aspects, all in a nice syrupy texture that adds to the sweetness
FINISH – warm with a fine prickly texture, the tropical fruit and cream notes nicely balanced, plus a slight plastic aftertaste
OVERALL – fun, sweet, savory, easy to drink, with a particularly lovely texture giving it weight
Unlike the standard Yoichi, this 10 Year does stand on its own. It would also pair well with a meal, of course. But I very much enjoy sipping this. It’s always a good sign when you find yourself reaching for the glass again and again—or maybe that’s a dangerous sign!
If it weren’t for the discernible plastic aspect in the color and especially the finish, where it matters to me more, I might even say this whisky was perfect in terms of getting at its intentions. Nikka has joined the transparency wave. I’m hoping they’ll also join the all-natural wave and drop artificial color as well. People go back and forth about whether added color impacts flavor. I believe it does. There’s no proving it with science either way, so the debate will rumble on. But having stepped further toward integrity with the transparency agreements, why not go all the way?
Ten years in the barrel moved what was a fine but forgettable whisky to something substantial. Yoichi 10 is legitimately fun to sip, while also providing compelling layers to parse through if one wishes. There is a liveliness to it, subdued by a certain restraint, making what could be a bouncy spring whisky feel more like a sunny day in autumn. Fun balanced with thoughtfulness.
As the Yoichi 10 is neither ubiquitous nor cheap, I don’t see myself making it a regular purchase. But I can imagine every handful of years I’ll likely have the impulse to check in, so long as the price does not continue substantially upward. And I’d certainly never turn down a glass if offered.
Cheers!
The Right Spirit 