Let’s keep the mini-streak of bottles I purchased around the turn of the previous decade going. My spreadsheet tells me that I acquired this bottle of Nikka’s Pure Malt Black, courtesy a friend transiting through the Reykjavik airport in August 2012. My spreadsheet also tells me that the 500 ml bottle cost all of $22 in 2012. This makes me want to both laugh and cry. There is very little good Japanese whisky on the market in the US anymore and none of it is as cheap as this was in 2012 (and it was cheap then too). That much is clear. What is less clear is the makeup of the whisky. Nikka put out a number of these Pure Malt releases (do they still?). In addition to the Black, there was also a White and a Red (apologies to any other colours I may be forgetting). No one was ever sure how they were made. The official line was that these were blends of malts from Nikka’s Miyagikyo and Yoichi distilleries but unofficially they were said to also contain whisky from, at least, the group’s Ben Nevis distillery in Scotland. Anyway, I don’t know why I never opened this bottle (or the bottle of the Pure Malt White my friend got me alongside it) for so many years but it’s now open, and here now are my notes.

Nikka Pure Malt, Black (43%; from my own bottle)

Nose: Milky coffee, wet stones, a bit of wet cigarette ash. Some salt behind all that. No real change here with time. A few drops of water and the sweetness moves from wet stones to orange (which is not to say that the wet stones go away).

Palate: Comes in exactly as indicated by the nose and in the same order. Very nice texture and bite at just 43%. Gets more peppery on the second sip and there’s a papery note to go with it as well. As it sits, a bit of lime emerges. All of the above with water but more of each and the whole is more rounded.

Finish: Long. The smoke—ashy rather than phenolic—continues to billow for a while. The lime hangs around here a while too once it shows up. Less smoky with water but otherwise as on the palate.

Comments: Ah, this is very nice. It puts me in mind of better releases of the Talisker 10 and also to some extent of the Longrow 18 (of which I don’t think there have been any poor releases). There’s not much complexity or development here—unlike in the Longrow 18—but what there is is choice. A very good, austere, mildly smoky whisky. As always, if I’d known what was coming, I would have found a way to acquire more of it.

Rating: 88 points.