Nikka Miyagikyo 10 Year Old

This was the first dram from a Nikka tasting at my local. Miyagiko aims to produce a luxuriantly fragrant malt.

• Nose: Floral (lavender and rose?), chamomile, sun baked hay, apple, fresh cur grass menthol and vanilla. Fruit notes, banana peach and grapefruit. Also a hint of coal ash. With water definitely rose now, much more vanilla and coal a little more noticeable.

• Pallet: sweet, herds candy, white chocolate some cigar tobacco, salt ginger and even a hint of peat there. With water much more savoury, nice note of sourdough bread and the peat comes through more, damp earth and citrus oils too.

• Finish: soft peat and brine with dark chocolate and more ginger spice. With water discernible difference here

Luxuriant and fragrant is right this whisky is beautifully delicate complex but also a bit strange. The peat and ash are very strange accompaniments to lavender, rose and grass. Not sure if that contrast is quite for me. A good dram none-the-less.

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