Karuizawa The Whisky Fair 1988, 19yo - 58.3%

The 2007 Whisky Fair in Germany had two Karuizawa especially bottled for the event. I already reviewed the 60.6% bottling before and now I finally got to taste the 58.3% refill sherry butt Karuizawa. Also I believe this bottling is a shared bottling with whiskysite.nl which released their own bottle of this cask.

• Nose: Without water quite strong solvent and alcohol with some malt and sherry in the background, also quite furity. With water much more accessible with moderate sherry, old wet oak, salt, banana, some matchstick and grassy. But some sharpness still remains.
• Mouth: Malt, sherry, some smoke and oak, smooth vanilla
• Finish: Fairly dry, some smoke and oak, fruity sherry towards the end and some bitter malt at the very end.

Comment: Quite good but not too stunning like many other Karuizawas. Letting it breath for a while mellows the dram and gives it a nice vanilla edge. The 60.6% bottle from the same event is quite a bit better IMO. 

86 points