Chivas Regal Mizunara was launched in 2013 and was, at the time, the first Scotch whisky to be selectively finished in Japanese Mizunara oak casks. Mizunara — Quercus crispula, the Japanese water oak — has been used by Japanese distillers since the second world war, when the wartime shortage of imported American and European casks forced Suntory and others to experiment with native timber. The wood is famously difficult: porous, prone to leaking, and slow-growing to the point that suitable trees must be at least two hundred years old.
The whisky was created by Colin Scott specifically for the Japanese market, where Chivas has long been a significant brand, and only later released more widely. The finishing period is short — Mizunara's influence arrives quickly and intensely — and the underlying blend is recognisably the Chivas house style of orchard fruit and honey, lifted by the oak's distinctive sandalwood and incense aromatics.
It is a quiet whisky rather than an aggressive one. Those expecting the spice-forward Mizunara intensity of, say, a Yamazaki single-cask bottling will find this more restrained, the Japanese oak acting as perfume rather than as engine. As an exercise in cross-cultural cask diplomacy it is genuinely interesting, and the technical achievement of sourcing and coopering enough Mizunara for a global blend should not be underestimated. A graceful, slightly understated dram.
