Hakushu 12 and 18: The Suntory Malt That Went Up a Mountain

Suntory has three malt distilleries and they are deliberately unalike. Hakushu is the one they put in the mountains.

Why the Location Is the Point

Hakushu opened in 1973, in forest at the foot of Mount Kaikomagatake in the Southern Japanese Alps, roughly 700 metres up.

Altitude is not decoration here. It lowers the boiling point in the stills and it keeps the warehouses cooler than Yamazaki down in its river valley. Cooler maturation is slower maturation, and slower maturation puts less wood into the spirit over the same number of years. That is a large part of why Hakushu stays fresh and green where Yamazaki goes rich and fruity.

The water comes off the mountain through granite, which makes it soft.

The Peat

This is the part that surprises people who think Japanese whisky means gentle.

Hakushu uses lightly peated malt, which none of the rest of Suntory's malt production leans on the same way. It is nothing like Islay. You are not getting a bonfire. You get a thin thread of smoke sitting behind green apple and mint and pine, and it is what stops the whisky from being merely fresh.

Herbal, faintly smoky, and unmistakably from somewhere with trees in it.

The Two We Pour

Hakushu 12 is green apple, pear, mint and cut grass, with the smoke arriving late and quietly. Crisp, clean, and the finish is short in a good way.

This is also one of the great highball whiskies, and Suntory knows it. A Hakushu highball with a mint leaf in it is a standard order in Japan, and it works because carbonation lifts exactly the herbal, green aromatics this whisky is built on. Our highballs run at 42 PSI for that reason.

Hakushu 18 is a different proposition. Dried fruit, honey, dark chocolate, more oak, and the smoke has gone from a thread to a proper layer. Richer and longer, and it will not tell you anything if you drown it.

Drink the 18 neat, or with one large piece of ice and some patience. It opens up considerably as it dilutes, and rushing it wastes it. It is also the most expensive pour on our whisky list by a distance, so order it when you mean it.

What to Eat With It

Grilled things. Yakitori with salt rather than tare, grilled fish, anything off the charcoal.

The 12 in particular does something specific with grilled seafood that no other whisky on our list does, because the herbal, slightly smoky profile lands in the same place the charcoal does.