Yamazaki 25-year-old

Japanese distillery Suntory has taken one of the top prizes at Whisky Magazine’s World Whiskies Awards for the second year running.

Their Yamazaki 25-year-old single malt collected the World’s Best Single Malt Whisky title at the awards last week.

This follows last year’s success which saw the Japanese whisky maker pick up the same title for their Yamazaki 1984.

Selected for the title after three rounds of blind tasting, the judges said of the Yamazaki 25: “The skills of distillation and aging have been superbly combined to produce this truly wonderful, amazing whisky. Suntory whisky is consistently excellent, its splendid balance always amazing.”

According to the distiller’s notes, the whisky “features the sweet bouquet imparted by the sherry casks, and a characteristic complicated and layered taste of interwoven sweetness and bitterness and a long, deep aftertaste”.