Glendalough Distillery has announced the launch of a 7-year-old Irish Single Malt aged in very rare Japanese Mizunara casks sourced from the island of Hokkaido, Japan.
A relentless search for the most flavourful oak in the world took them from their own wooded mountains in Wicklow to those in the volcanic north of Japan, Hokkaido. This is where they found Mizunara, the most sought-after oak in the whiskey world. As the first Irish whiskey brand to use the rare and exotic Mizunara, they had very much ventured into the unknown. Bringing Irish single malt and Japanese oak together went far off the beaten path, literally, but it has led to this wonderfully different whiskey. Mizunara is hard to source and costs more than ten times your average cask and is almost impossible to cooper. The trees are prone to growing twisted, they must be twice the age of most oak before they can be felled. Meaning “water oak”, it takes 3 years to dry before being notoriously hard to cooper. And after all that, it is so porous, it leaks worse than any other cask. But therein lies it’s saving grace. More whiskey gets deeper into the wood bringing more of its wonderfully exotic flavour out.
On the bottle you’ll see a little red thread - the Japanese call it the red thread of fate. This particular one represents a connection between the wooded Wicklow mountains, and those of Hokkaido. And the fateful union of some of the world’s best malt (Irish!) and what they maintain is the world’s most flavourful oak. This whiskey is vivid, but delicate with seamless depth. It is vibrant, fruity and floral on the nose, enjoying a luxuriously smooth mouthfeel with notes of dark chocolate orange, sandalwood and cinnamon synonymous with Mizunara whiskeys.
Glendalough's Mizunara 7-year-old Single Malt benefits from an exceptionally long finish of toasted oak and subtle layers of complex woody spices, with the dark chocolate lingering even longer. Speaking of the launch of Glendalough’s Mizunara, Enda O’Sullivan, VP, Spirits Mark Anthony Brands International said, “Every whiskey has a story, this one has an adventure, a relentless search for the best oak on earth. We don’t say this lightly, and we didn’t find it easily. By “best” we mean most flavourful. The quest that first led us into the oak forests in the mountains around our Wicklow distillery eventually led us to the far-flung north of Japan, where we found the highly prized, and almost mythical Mizunara Oak. They say what’s rare is beautiful. Mizunara aged single malt is both.”
Glendalough 7-year-old Single Malt Mizunara Finish will be available in O’Briens (Nationwide), Celtic Whiskey Shop (Dublin), The Vineyard (Belfast), Carry Out (Killarney), Kelly’s Off Licence (Clontarf) and all good independent off licences priced at €85 from February 25th.
For more information on Glendalough Distillery’s entire portfolio, visit their website and follow them on social @glendaloughdistillery to keep up to date with the latest news.
Slán go fóill,
Danny