The Japanese whisky market has evolved dramatically over the past 15 years. Our past Japanese whisky nights at Rice Market have featured young producers that have taken advantage of the recent global explosion of popularity of Japanese whisky. The current boom is largely attributable to 2014 when whisky writer Jim Murray identified a limited release Yamazaki Sherry Cask as the best whisky in the world. Since then, demand sky rocketed which led to higher prices, depleted stocks, and a significant sea change in the way Japanese whisky is produced and perceived.

That Yamazaki Sherry Cask was part of a series of releases in the early 2010s referred to as the Wood Collection that highlighted different components of Suntory’s main distilleries Yamazaki and Hakushu. These included Heavily Peated, Bourbon Barrel, Puncheon, Mizunara, and the famed Sherry Cask expressions for both distilleries.

This tasting will feature several of the Wood Collection releases from 2013 and 2014. These were readily available and relatively affordable before the whisky world turned its collective eye to Japan, but are extremely difficult to find now. And the current iteration of this series, the Tsukuriwake Series, is vastly more expensive.

Join us for the first hour of the evening for a guided taste of six of the original Suntory Wood Collection. The tasting will feature:

• Yamazaki Puncheon 2013
• Yamazaki Bourbon Barrel 2013
• Yamazaki Heavily Peated 2013
• Hakushu Bourbon Barrel 2013
• Hakushu Heavily Peated 2013
• Hakushu Sherry Cask 2014

Following the guided tasting, the evening will transition to an open house where each of these and additional limited edition Suntory and Nikka expressions will be available by the dram. These will include long discontinued age stated expressions.

TICKETS