Hello, fellow whisky lover. You might’ve heard about a little thing called The Yamazaki Mizunara 18 Year Old. Well, we’ve been lucky enough to get our hands on six bottles – and this is what we’re gonna do with ’em.

Want to find out when this is all going down? See the timeline below.

If you’re not sure what all the faff is about, let us explain. This extraordinary bottling is a blend of single malt whiskies aged entirely in Mizunara casks for at least 18 years. Mizunara oak is only found in a few regions in Japan, so it’s pretty hard to come by; it’s also soft and porous, so it’s not particularly great at retaining liquid. Suntory Whisky persevered, and released just 1,000 bottles of this unbelievable whisky worldwide – of which we’re delighted to have six.

To say this bottling is highly sought-after is an understatement. It has an RRP of £1,000, but a quick Google search confirms that it’s going for way more than that already (Think double that price, or even more…), which is why we’ve decided to split our allocation between a 30ml dram lottery, a bottle lottery, and a charity auction.

This has been the case with rarities like this for the past few years (most recently, the hotly-anticipated Buffalo Trace Antique Collection 2017, and before that, the Yamazaki Sherry Cask Release, to name just a few). If you’re wondering what the hell we’re on about, we invite you to read this post for an in-depth explanation.

To be clear, the six bottles will be sorted into three equal piles:

    1. Pile A will be sent to Drinks by the Dram to turn into 30ml samples (drams), and these drams will be sold via lottery.
    2. Pile B will be sold via lottery, and to filter out the people who actually want to drink it (and not flog it on for a fast buck) on the back of your bottle we’ll write “I, [your lucky winning name], hereby swear not to sell this bottle – but to drink it with my chums. May my taste-buds and olfactory bulb shrivel and die if I should break my word.”
    3. Pile C will be sold via auction with everything over RRP (net of any applicable VAT) donated to Malaria No More UK.

 

Yamazaki Mizunara 18The Yamazaki Mizunara 18 Year Old

The Yamazaki Mizunara 18 Year Old Lottery and Auction Timeline

So we’ve got the ‘what’ and the ‘why’. Here’s the ‘when’:

  • The dram lottery will run Monday 15 Jan 16:00 – Tuesday 16 Jan 14:00
  • The bottle lottery will run Tuesday 16 Jan 16:00 – Wednesday 17 Jan 14:00
  • The bottle auction will run Wednesday 17 Jan 16:00 – Friday 19 Jan 14:00

All the action will get underway on The Yamazaki Mizunara 18 Year Old product page where you’ll need to sign up for the lotteries, and register for the auction.

If you’ve any questions about the reasoning behind the process, please read this. Again. Hopefully we’ve covered everything else, but if you have a burning question ask away in the comments below.