Thursday, October 18, 2012

Karuizawa - Hanshin Tigers Commemorative Bottling



Nestled amongst the back streets of Rokkomichi, Kobe is your run of the mill independent liquor store. Although literally a few blocks away from the JR Rokkomichi station, this small but friendly establishment would literally be like trying to find a needle in a hay stack on a whim. Luckily for me, and purely coincidental, I was in the area on other matters and happened to see the sign with the word "sake" written in kanji out the corner of my eye. I frequent Rokkomichi often, it is home to one of my favourite watering holes and Yamaya, but this place has been hiding out of site for some time. Like the majority of small liquor shops it was quite the norm with what it stocked, but often than not these independent stores always have a hidden gem or two floating around, just as this store did, but in every way out of site and tucked amongst the bottom shelves.

I unearthed a few dusty boxes of Hanshin Tigers whisky amongst the depth of the stores typical line-up of blends. I was quite excited to see these, as a general rule any whisky sporting the Hanshin Tigers logo often than not is/was bottled by Mercian, therefore containing malt from the Karuizawa distillery. These bottlings, which are 12-year-olds, have been vatted using Karuizawa Genshu malt ranging from 12 years all the way up to 31 year old stock. The shape of this particular bottling and the black plastic capsule on the neck are typical qualities of the standard OB 12 and 15-year-old bottlings (the final design and newest out of the distillery's run). Besides these attributes the cap itself sports the Mercian logo and the bottom of the bottle is inscribed "Karuizawa Distillery", making it to be, what I believe, the actual 12-year-old 100% malt OB with novelty labels.

Commemorating the victory of the Hanshin Tigers in 2003 Mercian (Karuizawa distillery) released, as far as I can tell, four different commemorative bottlings. The bottle mentioned above (700ml/ABV:40%), a commemorative boxed set (including glass) with the teams victory logo, 350ml blends sporting plastic heads of the entire team (individually), and a rare trinket musical novelty bottling. This isn't/wasn't a one of concept collaboration for the Hanshin Tigers and Mercian. I have come across an extremely rare ceramic commemorative Hanshin Tigers bottling from the Ocean days as well blends from the late 80's. These collaborative bottlings may hold some significance to baseball aficionados, luckily for me I was brought up in a country where baseball was almost unheard of, therefore the significance does not apply...purely for consumption.

4 comments:

  1. Hi I will be visiting Osaka/Kobe in the coming few weeks and would be delighted to know where this store is so I can get a bottle too. Did you happen to take a photo of the store or get a business card?? Thanks for the sharing!!

    Kennis

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    1. Kennis a belated reply and I do apologize, somehow I overlooked your comment last year - terribly sorry. Please refer to the comments below.

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  2. Hi,
    Do you know if there is anyway that I can get a bottle of this to the U.S? I can't find any information. Thank you

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    1. Well, unfortunately I made another trip to the store in Rokkomichi and I bought the remaining last one. And being what it is (collaboration bottle) there will be no more entering the shop unfortunately.

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