Kura The Whisky: Hokkaido Peat, Okinawan Malt, Japanese Rum Casks

Okinawa is not where you'd look for whisky. It's subtropical, it's the home of awamori, and the climate is hostile to long maturation.

Helios Distillery, in Nago, makes whisky there anyway.

The Distillery

Helios built its name locally on awamori. That's the business. Less publicly, they've been distilling rum and malt whisky as well, which is an unusual set of licenses to hold in one place.

That combination turns out to be the whole reason this bottle works.

Hokkaido Peat

The peated component starts with peat from the mires of Hokkaido, about as far from Okinawa as Japan goes.

Hokkaido peat shares a lot of characteristics with Scottish peat, but availability is extremely limited, so almost nobody uses it. Choosing it over imported Scottish peat is a deliberate, awkward decision.

That whisky is blended with other single malt distilled in Okinawa after years of aging in American white oak.

The Rum Casks

Then the finish, which is the part only Helios could do.

The malts are finished in used Japanese rum casks, Helios's own rum casks, seasoned for up to 21 years before being used here.

Rum-cask finishing exists elsewhere, but almost always with imported Caribbean casks. Using rum barrels you filled yourself, in the same building, is a different proposition. It's the awamori-and-rum side of the business feeding the whisky side.

Bottled at 40% as a pure malt, a blended malt, in Scottish terms.

What It Tastes Like

Nose: Toasted oak, creamy lemon, soft malt

Palate: Brown sugar, burnt oak

Finish: Rye bread, bitter grape

The brown sugar is the rum cask showing up plainly. It's sweeter and rounder than the peat on the label might lead you to expect.

How to Drink It

Neat or one large rock. The rum-cask sweetness carries dilution well, so a highball is legitimate and quite good.

Pair It With

Sweet-savory and grilled. Unagi don, pork kakuni, tebasaki, kuro buta sausage skewers.

Try It at Juraku

Kura The Whisky is on the whisky list at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side. Worth ordering next to our Okinawan awamori, same island, same company, different discipline.