Three Whiskies from Yoichi Distillery
Limited Blended, Single Malt 3-Pack, Pure Malt Red & Black

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On a Hokkaido road trip in August 2022, I stopped by the Nikka Whisky Yoichi Distillery. Masataka Taketsuru founded Dai Nippon Kaju (later Nikka) in 1934 and chose the town of Yoichi in Hokkaido because the climate resembled Campbeltown in Scotland and because the area had clean water and good peat. The distillery tour is free, and the on-site shop carries "you-can-only-get-it-here" limited bottles. Since I'd come all the way out, I left with three of them.

The drive up to Yoichi and the rest of that day are written up in Hokkaido by Car, Day 2 (Shakotan & Yoichi). This time I'll stick to what I tasted later, at home, with those three bottles open in front of me.

Yoichi Distillery Limited Blended Whisky 700 mL, 40%

A distillery-exclusive blend you only find at the on-site shop. The label describes it as a blend of Yoichi malt, Miyagikyō malt, and grain whisky; the cask presence comes through clearly while the spirit is still very drinkable. Peat is held back and you get malt sweetness and a sherry-cask depth up front. From memory, it was around the low ¥3,000s when I bought it.

Too good to mix; this is one to enjoy neat or on the rocks. In 2022 it was still sitting on the shelf normally, but with the rise of Japanese whisky demand, I hear it's now harder to track down.

Single Malt Yoichi PEATY&SALTY / WOODY&VANILLIC / SHERRY&SWEET — 180 mL × 3

Another distillery-exclusive: a side-by-side tasting set. PEATY&SALTY leads with peated-malt smoke and a salty edge from coastal maturation — the most "Yoichi" of the three. WOODY&VANILLIC is bourbon-cask dominant: vanilla, coconut, sweet and smooth. SHERRY&SWEET shows long sherry-cask aging — dense dried fruit and chocolate.

Pour them in parallel and you can simply hear how much the cask matters, even with malt from the same distillery. At 180 mL each they're "open and finish" portions. As a teaching set for the role of the cask in whisky, it's hard to beat.

Nikka Pure Malt Red & Black, 500 mL each

Pure Malt Red and Black were originally siblings of Black Nikka — long-running staples in Japan. They were discontinued and later reissued with new labels and specs. Both were sitting on the Yoichi shop shelf when I went, so I added them to the haul.

Red is malt-forward, sweet, and easy. Black is built around peat smoke, hard-edged. The contrast jumps out as a highball: Red expands the sweetness of the carbonation, while Black tightens up beautifully against smoked food. Two bottles with very clear, very different outlines — neither one trying for "balanced."

Yoichi Distillery isn't just a factory tour stop; it's the history of Japanese whisky itself. Taketsuru chose this land to make Scotch-quality whisky in Japan — and to taste a spirit aged in that same air and water and then carry it out the door is, maybe, the real value of a distillery-exclusive bottle. More than the flavour, what you're really taking home is a small piece of the place.