Tasted as Day 22 of the 2024 Saratoga Whiskey Club Advent Calendar. Every day is a new adventure with a blind tasting, where we each try to guess the country of origin, the type and age of the whisk(e)y, the ABV, and the type of barrel/cask used for maturation, followed by a reveal at 9PM. In 1890 Jokichi Takamine moved to America, and by 1900, the scientist created medical adrenaline. With his wealth, and to share some of his Japanese culture with his American hosts, he donated the Japanese cherry trees to Washington, DC that you can still visit today. One of his earlier experiments used an ancient sake-making method to grow koji spores on barley to create a “maltless” whiskey. The original Takamine Whiskey he made was never released. However, the Shinozaki Brewery & Distillery with over 200 years of experience, began using koji to take a chance on whiskey, using his patented Takamine Process: an ancient Japanese mold, koji, converts starches to sugars in a process similar to malting barley. Unlike malt whiskey where sugars are extracted in a warm water mash before yeast is introduced to start the fermentation, both the koji and yeast are active at the same time in a multiple parallel fermentation. This 100% barley ferment is then double distilled and aged in virgin oak and ex-Bourbon casks to give the spirit its natural golden color and deep, lush flavors. Additionally, this whiskey, bottled in 2024, is finished in Sakura (Cherry Blossom) casks. Even though this is not technically a single malt, for the purpose of being able to search on WhiskeyPoints, I have categorized this as Single Malt. It is actually a Koji Whiskey - note that this is spelled "whiskey," whereas other Japanese are "whisky." This is in part paying homage to its American roots, and part because Koji-ferrmented spirits do not meet the full technical standards to be called Japanese Whisky.