Akashi Whisky

Akashi comes from the Eigashima Shuzo company in Akashi, a port city on the Seto Inland Sea just west of Kobe. Eigashima is an old sake and shochu brewer, and its White Oak distillery holds one of Japan's earliest whisky licences. It is a small operation by Japanese standards. That shows in the range: short runs, a lot of cask experimentation, and prices that start well below the big houses.

The bottles, from everyday to special

• Akashi White Oak Blended ($49.99) — about 30% lightly peated malt and 70% grain whisky, aged in bourbon, shochu and sherry casks and bottled at 40%. Vanilla, citrus and a whisper of smoke. A friendly first Japanese whisky and a good highball base.
• Akashi White Oak Single Malt ($119.99) — non-chill-filtered at 46%, from sherry, American oak and bourbon casks. Malty and fruity, with candied ginger, aniseed and a little smoke on the finish. This is the bottle that shows what the distillery does.
• Akashi 5 Year Old Sherry Casks ($244.99) — a limited single malt aged in Pedro Ximénez and Oloroso sherry casks and bottled at 50%. Dark cherry, blackcurrant and marmalade. One for the collector.
• Akashi Ume ($39.99) — Akashi's blended whisky steeped with green ume plums and rock sugar for 6–12 months, at 30.5%. Sweet, tart and excellent with soda. It is a whisky liqueur rather than a straight whisky, so treat it as an aperitif.

Where Akashi fits

If you like the big Suntory and Nikka single malts but want something smaller and more idiosyncratic, the White Oak Single Malt is the natural next step. If you are buying for someone who already owns Yamazaki, the 5 Year Sherry Cask is the more interesting gift.

For the rules behind the words on a Japanese whisky label, read Is your Japanese whisky actually Japanese?. And since Eigashima is a sake brewer too, our guide to reading a sake label is a good companion. Browse the full Japanese Whisky collection, or compare with Kanosuke and the Sake collection.