Chivas Regal Mizunara (700 ml)

When Master Blender Sandy Hyslop chose to introduce Mizunara oak into a blended Scotch, he was breaking a rule the category had held for over a century: that Japanese oak belonged to Japanese whisky. Chivas Regal Mizunara is partly matured in Mizunara casks — a wood so porous and slow-growing that it imparts incense-like sandalwood and coconut lactones at a fraction of the rate of American or European oak, demanding patience from any producer who uses it.

The heart malt, Strathisla, is drawn from the Broomhill Spring, granite-filtered process water in Keith, Speyside. Strathisla's short-necked pot stills suppress copper reflux, allowing heavier, ester-rich vapours to carry through — producing a new make with the density needed to absorb Mizunara's slow-release compounds without being overwhelmed. Wooden washbacks and a roughly two-day fermentation preserve that full-bodied character before distillation.

The blend draws on Strathisla as its core malt alongside Longmorn, The Glenlivet, Braeval, and Strathclyde grain, bottled at 40% ABV. What distinguishes this expression within the Chivas range is the Mizunara finish itself — a cask type almost exclusively associated with Japanese single malts, applied here to a Speyside-anchored blend, producing a profile that sits between the house's characteristic orchard-fruit richness and the resinous, temple-incense register of Kyoto cooperage.