Hibiki Japanese Harmony: Three Distilleries, Five Casks, Twenty-Four Facets

Hibiki was created in 1989 for Suntory's 90th anniversary, and it has since become the most internationally decorated Japanese blended whisky there is.

Harmony is the entry to the range, and it's a genuinely complicated piece of work for something people order without thinking.

Where the Whisky Comes From

Suntory owns three distilleries, and Hibiki uses all three.

Yamazaki, outside Osaka, for malt — Japan's first whisky distillery.

Hakushu, in the Japanese Alps, for a different malt character. We pour the 12 and 18 year single malts from there.

Chita, on the Chita Peninsula, for grain whisky.

Harmony is a blend of at least ten different malt and grain whiskies drawn from those three sites.

Five Casks

The whiskies are matured in five cask types, and one of them is unusual enough to matter.

American white oak brings vanilla and orchard fruit. Sherry casks bring dark fruit and depth. Mizunara — Japanese oak — brings a sandalwood-and-incense character that essentially no other whisky-making country has access to at scale.

There are also plum liqueur casks, which is about as Japanese a decision as a blender can make.

What's in the Glass

Nose: Rose, lychee, rosemary, orange peel, a thread of sandalwood

Palate: Candied orange peel, white chocolate, honey, warm mizunara spice

Finish: Long, with the incense note of Japanese oak persisting quietly

The mizunara is the signature. It's subtle here rather than dominant, and it's the thing that makes a blind taster say "Japanese" before they say anything else.

The Twenty-Four Facets

The bottle has 24 sides, one for each sekki, the traditional Japanese micro-seasons that divide the year into twenty-four rather than four.

It's decoration, but it's decoration that tells you what the whisky is trying to be.

How to Drink It

Neat, or as a highball. Suntory built the Japanese highball culture and Hibiki holds up in one better than a blend at this level has any right to.

A large rock is fine. Skip cocktails that bury it.

Pair It With

Yakitori with tare, tebasaki, pork kakuni. A Hibiki highball alongside karaage is one of the easiest good decisions on our menu.

Try It at Juraku

Hibiki Japanese Harmony is on the whisky list at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side, and available by the bottle for the table.