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The clear broth theory

• 1 min read
Jota Tanaka at Gotemba distillery

An exploration of the transparency of Japanese whisky – and how that sensibility is influencing whiskey-making back in Scotland. Above, Jota Tanaka at the Fuji-Gotemba distillery, 10 years before the conversations with him reported here.

In my last article, In search of temple smell, I mentioned how the scent of Japanese oak was described as being ‘like a temple’ and how that similarity eluded me until I went to one and inhaled. (It’s the incense.) It was my first experience of how, when talking to the country’s distillers and blenders, there was always something deeper lying under their explanations...

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