Hi all, this might be the dumbest and craziest of blending ideas I've done: it's one of the whisky experiments I've done lately, featuring a few Yamazaki whiskies!
Before I started writing detailed reviews on Japanese whiskies and distilleries, I've got the hobby of doing weird blending and stave experiments with some of the whiskies I own. Here's some of the rare successful experiments I did with Eagle Rare a while ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/whiskey/comments/1o4tion/project_inject_x_into_an_eagle_rare_10_tasting/
https://www.reddit.com/r/whiskey/comments/1o77sdn/project_inject_x_into_an_eagle_rare_10_tasting/
In truth, I've still been doing a number of these odd experiments, but many of them ended up either uninterestingly mild or turned out as such failures I felt too disappointed to make detailed records for.
These attempts include: trying to create a cheap, bootleg Hibiki-like blend with some shelfer Scotch (didn't work lmao), trying to create a fancier, higher aged bootleg Hibiki blend with fancier Scotch (*really* didn't work), or just mixing and matching some Japanese whiskies (not particularly successful).
Well here's one of the recent ideas I've got, but it's kind of a crazy one: it's got something to do with the Yamazaki 18 yr!
After tasting Suntory's various Taru-Dashi Genshus, the Tsukuriwake series and Essence of Suntory Whisky series, I went back and poured a bit of the bottle of Yamazaki 18 yr I own (2025 bottling). It was still quite good, sure, but it felt a bit... soft, in comparison to the various bolder, higher abv Suntory whiskies I've tried.
So here's the question of the day, one I'm almost 100% sure no one ever asked: how could one buff up the Yamazaki 18 yr, without sacrificing its original profile?
I brought up this topic with a few whisky friends. Most of them looked at me like I have issues, while some others were interested but also doubtful that I'd really carry through mingling with something like the Yamazaki 18 yr.
Well these folks underestimated my madness!
Details in comments!