Nikka’s signature bottling honors founder Masataka Taketsuru, who brought his whisky-making skills back from Scotland to Japan in 1920. Taketsuru’s successors have reformulated this blended malt, which fully complies with the latest definitions of Japanese whisky. Made from the blending of malts from the two distilleries of Yoichi and Miyagikyo, this whisky was the pride and joy of its creator Masataka Taketsuru, founder of Nikka and the father of Japanese Whisky. Light golden honey in color with candied nuts, walnuts, and hazelnuts on the nose as well as delicate and gentle smoke coming through with hay. Forward and straight pallet with a juicy mouth feels, yet retaining a very gentle and sophisticated heat. Sweet apricots and peach dominate at first, leading to vanilla and subtle hints of a ripe grape. Complex and long on the finish with a lingering taste of dry herbs, leather, and sweet pastry. The aromas create an oasis of calm with layers of gentle wood spices, smoke, vanilla pod, and lemon biscuits, while the palate carries a distinctive waxy sappiness that revels in luscious flavors of star fruit, lemon, Asian pear, peach syrup, and aromatic spice.