In the second of his monthly installments, Charles Maclean gives his thoughts on the Malt of the Month : Hakushu 12 year old and its Distillery. Japanese Single malts have been doing exceptionally well in blind tastings recently, and Hakashu is no exception.

Soft and fruity on the nose, with tinned peaches, lychees and mandarins. Behind this a cosmetic aroma of cold cream and Lux soap flakes. A hint of smoke. Water freshens it: fresh laundry, green apples, wild mint. A soft texture, with apples and a short, fresh finish.

Hakushu Distillery – pronounced ‘Hack-shoo’, which means ‘white sand bar’ – stands at 2,300 feet (700 metres) above sea level – more than twice the altitude of Scotland’s highest distillery – in the shadow of the pale granite pyramid of Mount Kai-komagateke (9,744 feet; 2,970 metres), in the ‘Japanese Alps’.

The distillery is the largest in the world - although half its stills are currently mothballed - and the entire site extends to 210 acres (850,000 sq. m.), mostly covered by deep green sub-tropical forest, and mostly protected as a nature reserve. The air is clean and cool (maximum summer temperature 28C) which makes Hakushu district popular with summer visitors escaping the torrid heat of the cities and plains of Japan’s south island, Honshu – especially since it is only three hours by Bullet Train from downtown Tokyo.

White is a sacred colour in Japan, and the ‘white sand bar’ which gives its name to the forest and township of Hakushu, as well as the distillery, derives from alluvial deposits from the Ojira and Jingu Rivers which water the district, rushing down from the mountain above in cool, crystal-clear cascades, filtering through the granite rocks and filling many subterranean caverns and springs. It is considered to be the best water in Japan and is bottled and sold by Suntory, the distillery’s owner.

The quality of the water was one of the reasons that Suntory chose to build their second distillery at Hakushu in 1973, the year the company celebrated its 50th anniversary. It was a time when Japanese whisky was enjoying huge, albeit local, popularity – so much so that, five years later, capacity was doubled to twenty-four stills. A further twelve stills were added in 1981 when a new still-house was built, named Hakushu Higashi, or ‘Hakushu East’, making it the largest distillery in the world.

Until 1984, when Yamazaki Single Malt Whisky was produced, Japanese malt whisky was not available as a single. Everything went into blended whisky. Like other Japanese distilleries, Hakushu produces several styles of malt whisky. The reason for this is that, unlike in Scotland, Japanese distillers do not exchange malt and grain whiskies (from which they make their blends), so each company has to make all the flavours it requires.

Hakushu can do this by varying the peating levels in its malted barley – all the malt comes from Scotland, but some is smoky and most not. By using different strains of yeast, and different lengths of fermentation – unlike Scotch distillers, the Japanese believe that yeast-strains and fermentation times play a crucial role.

Then there are the stills themselves, and how they are operated. Hakushu has the widest range of still shapes and sizes of any distillery in the world. Six wash stills and six spirit stills; some are short and dumpy, some tall and majestic; some of their lyne arms [the pipe that connects the head of the still to the condenser] angle up, some down and some straight across – there’s even one spirit still with a detachable/replaceable lyne arm, so it can make two entirely different styles of spirit. Five of the stills are direct fired by gas flames; one is indirect fired by steam coils. Likewise, five of the stills have shell and tube condensers, but one has a worm tub...

And finally there’s the wood: a combination of new and refill American oak barrels, ex-Oloroso sherry Spanish oak butts and new Japanese oak casks.

As with other Japanese single malts, each expression of Hakushu – currently there are four: at 10, 12, 18 and 25 years - is a vatting of different casks and styles of whisky. This is quite unlike Scotch malt, and gives the Japanese product an interesting extra dimension.

What is this ‘extra dimension’? How do Japanese malt whiskies differ from their Scottish cousins? After all, the production and maturation processes are identical, and it may be said that, of all the world’s whiskies, Japanese malt is the closest in flavour to Scotch.

The most noticeable difference is a lack of any cereal flavours. Very many Scotch malts have malty notes - especially the younger expressions – by design. Japanese distillers exclude these notes in several ways:

First, by making sure their wort is crystal clear. The wort is the sugary liquid created when the ground malt, the ‘grist’, is mixed with hot water in the mash tun. Scotish distillers talk about ‘clear’ and ‘cloudy’ worts (the latter making for a malty spirit), but none is so clear as Japanese wort.

Second, as I have mentioned, by using a mix of distillers’ and brewers’ yeasts, some unique to an individual distillery. This used to be the case in Scotland, but now all Scottish distillers use only distillers’ yeast. Furthermore, the brewer in a Japanese distillery will kick start his fermentation with the latter, and pitch brewers yeast part-way into the fermentation, in the belief that this produces a range of new floral-fruity flavours in the spirit.

Third, Japanese distillers tend to ferment for very long periods – typically around 72 hours. Some Scottish distillers ferment for as short as 48 hours (which produces a malty spirit); others for around 60 hours.

Dr Mas Minable, a senior chemist at Suntory, defined the difference between the flavour of Scotch malt and Japanese malt whiskies as ‘transparency’, in conversation with my friend and colleague Dave Broom, who went on to explain:

“On the one hand, this means a precision of character, an ordered array of aromas and flavours that seem to line up on the palate and can be tasted almost individually while still making up a complex whole. This isn’t to say that these are light whiskies. Transparency is spot on. You can see into them”.

This is well demonstrated by this excellent malt from Hakushu chosen by World of Whiskies this month.