深野酒造..水稻威士忌

Fukano rice whisky is essentially rice shochu that’s been aged in oak casks, which might sound weird, but really the process for making shochu is similar to making any other distilled beverage. You start by getting some kind of fermentable organic ingredient (in this case rice since whisky requires a 100% grain mashbill), mashing it, fermenting it and then distilling that fermented liquid. Whether it’s bourbon, Irish whiskey or Scotch the basic process is the same, but with one major differentiator… copper.

Because rice is a clean, sulfurless, distillate it doesn’t require copper stills to produce a drinkable beverage and is instead distilled in stainless steel still and distilled at a relatively low proof. After distillation the shochu, which would be called new make outside of Japan, is then transferred to new charred oak barrels and laid to rest in a warehouse that more closely resembles a Scottish dunnage than a Kentucky Rickhouse.

After an unspecified amount of time, a.k.a. “when it was ready”, two of the barrels were bottled at full cask strength and shipped to Los Angeles where the importer invited me over to try them and give my opinion. I enjoyed them, ask if I could write about them and now that the background is covered, it’s on to the Fukano Rice Whisky review so we can see how it tastes!