Yamazaki 12 Year Old

Japan’s Yamazaki distillery was founded in 1923 after Shinjiro Torii of Kotobukiya, which would later be renamed Suntory, poached the chemist Masataka Taketsuru from rivals Settsu Shuzo, who had sent Taketsuru to Scotland to study distillation, but had decided on his return not to build a distillery after all.

Torii and Taketsuru shared a desire to make Scotch-style single malt whisky in Japan. Torii constructed Yamazaki to Taketsuru’s specifications but overruled his wish to build in a mountain location. The frustrated Taketsuru saw out his contract with Suntory, running Yamazaki through its early years before departing to found Suntory’s great rivals Nikka. Yamazaki single malt whisky is the basis for Suntory’s Hibiki blend, and the distillery’s single malts are now highly sought-after worldwide.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.