Product Description

Please note

The bottles are hand blown, so the level of liquid in the bottle you receive may appear to be less, but will be filled to 50cl

A very special whisky from long-closed Japanese distillery Karuizawa, distilled way back in 1965. This impressive Karuizawa 50 Year Old release has been aged in a solitary sherry butt before being bottled in 2017 and resting until release in 2022. It's rich, dark and elegant, with complex layers of fruit and spice – in our opinion the best Karuizawa release of recent memory. It will be released in small tranches of bottles on a yearly basis and this first release of 50 bottles is available exclusively from The Whisky Exchange.

Product Facts

Age
50 Year Old
Vintage
1965
Bottling Date
2022
No of Bottles
318
Country
Japan
Cask Type
Sherry Butt
Cask Number
3037

Karuizawa 50 Year Old 1965 Vintage

Japanese Whisky

50cl / 58.3%

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Our experienced warehouse team take great care with every order. As specialists in glass packaging they ensure that your items stay safe and secure in transit.

Returns

30-Day returns policy

We want you to be 100% happy with your order and it is our aim to ensure that all products supplied to all customers arrive in perfect condition. You have the right to cancel your order at any time without being charged for the goods ordered within 30 days of purchasing (other than for perishable or personalised products or those products that have been specified as non-returnable).

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Disclaimer

While we endeavour to provide full and accurate information on our website, there may be occasions where producers have updated their recipe or failed to provide full details of their ingredients and processes. This may affect factors including the product style and allergen information, and we would advise that you always check the label and not solely rely on the information presented here. If you are at all uncertain about a product then please contact our customer service team before purchase.

Over the past decade a number of award-winning, highly-sought-after whiskies have been bottled from Karuizawa, Japan’s most famous closed distillery. Stocks of this rare whisky will not last for ever, but there are still some gems hiding in our warehouse. This bottle is one of the most exciting yet – Karuizawa 50 Years Old.

Matured in sherry casks for 50 years, it shows quite how well the distillery’s rich and weighty spirit develops with decades in wood. Elegant and complex, it is a multi-faceted jewel, with layers of fruit, chocolate, coffee, spice and long-aged oak. A masterpiece of time and spirit.

The design of the bottle is inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese practise of ‘golden repair’ – fixing broken pottery using lacquer mixed with powdered metals, especially gold, to make the repair both beautiful, obvious and part of its history. Each bottle is unique, featuring a different pattern of golden cracks.

Kintsugi is allied to the wider philosophy of wabi sabi, the embracing of transience, an idea that is expressed through this whisky. Having waited through its long maturation, constantly changing until the moment of bottling, it is shaped by the forces of nature.

The Karuizawa 50 Year Old is a very limited release of just 318 bottles, with only a limited number available each year worldwide. The first year’s release of 50 bottles is exclusively available from The Whisky Exchange.

Due to the demand for this bottle we are asking potential buyers to register their interest above by Sunday 4 December 2022. We will contact interested parties by Monday 12 December 2022, letting them know if they will be able to purchase a bottle.

Karuizawa Distillery was founded in the town of the same name in 1956, built to make whisky for the Ocean range of blended whiskies. In 1976, the distillery made history by releasing the first Japanese made single malt. It enjoyed moderate success, but as the Japanese market waxed and waned it slowly began to disappear, until its owners stopped production in 2000. In 2011, the distillery was closed and dismantled soon after. The stills are now used to make whisky at Shizuoka distillery, 100 miles to the south of the former site of Karuizawa distillery.

However, in the early 2000s single casks of Karuizawa started appearing and whisky connoisseurs discovered the distillery. Its use of high-quality sherry casks and Golden Promise barley piqued interest, and the rich and complex character of the whisky won it fans around the world. With no more casks being filled, stocks can never replenished and Karuizawa has become one of the rarest whiskies in the world.

Find out more