At Teruko, a Japanese restaurant within the basement of New York’s Resort Chelsea, you could possibly drink a distinct bottle of whisky day-after-day for a 12 months. Actually. Brian Evans, director of the lodge’s bars, estimates that Teruko is presently residence to 365 bottles of whisky from Japan—the most important assortment in all of North America. (Evans specifies that they’re whiskies from Japan, not essentially Japanese whiskies, due to new laws on the classification.)
Japanese Whisky 101
“Everyone talks in regards to the meticulous, ceremonious, detail-oriented nature by which Japanese whiskies are created,” says Evans. For him, there are a couple of pillars that outline the class.
1. The artistry of mixing. Japanese whiskies have a tendency to mix outdated single malts with new, or flippantly peated with closely peated. Distillers attempt to discover a “harmonious sphere of flavors,” says Evans.
2. Growing older in Japanese wooden. Timber which might be indigenous to Japan, like sakura, mizunara oak and chestnut, are sometimes used within the growing older course of.
3. Meals compatibility. “There are specific umami taste profiles that you just see extra in whiskies from Japan than anyplace else on the planet,” he says. Inherently, that makes them an excellent pair for umami-rich dishes which might be frequent in Japanese delicacies.
Amassing all of those bottles didn’t occur in a single day. “We have now loads of the actually well-known producers from, I’d say, the Mount Rushmore of Japanese whisky—Suntory, Nikka, Chichibu, Mars,” says Evans. However there are additionally rarer expressions from lesser-known or now-closed distilleries, which the Teruko workforce discovered by way of analysis and rabbit holes. “It grew to become an obsessive snowball impact. One producer results in one other,” he says. “There are a number of single-cask expressions that a few of these smaller, extra artisanal producers are placing forth. They’re releasing just a few bottles a 12 months, so that you type of have this Pokémon mindset. You’ve gotta catch ‘em all.”
One of many pleasures of ingesting at Teruko is taking within the breadth of all these bottles, which sit on show in opposition to a pearlescent backdrop that was flown in from Tokyo’s now-shuttered Resort Okura. “There’s one thing for everyone on this bar program,” says Evans. However generally, it’s exhausting to know the place to start out. We requested Evans to share 5 bottles that outline Teruko—learn on for 4 of his whisky highlights, and a cocktail-friendly shochu.
