After exploring Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal, KANOSUKE’s five-part Artist Edition reaches its final element: Water.

KANOSUKE Single Malt Artist Edition #005 is the fifth and final release in a limited series inspired by the East Asian Five Elements. Its “Water” theme is expressed through three different Mizunara-oak whisky components, peated and unpeated malt, slow dilution and a watercolour label by Alexander Kori Girard.

The whisky is not built around one dominant note. Sandalwood-like aromatics, sweet-tart kumquat jam and restrained peat unfold gradually, designed to spread like ripples rather than arrive all at once.

The final chapter of the Five Elements series

The Artist Edition series draws on the Five Elements — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water — a traditional East Asian framework for understanding change and relationships in the natural world.

Release #005 represents Water and closes the five-part sequence.

KANOSUKE’s Chief Blender Shunichi Nakamura did not interpret water simply as clarity or stillness. He focused on its dual nature: quiet but powerful, able to change shape, move around obstacles and spread from a small ripple into a larger current.

That idea shaped the blending approach. Rather than allowing one forceful component to dominate, several whiskies gradually overlap and expand into a long, integrated finish.

Three different expressions of Mizunara oak

The core of Artist Edition #005 is built around three different Mizunara-oak whisky components.

The first is unpeated new make matured in Mizunara oak, bringing youthful incense-like wood, coconut and vanilla sweetness.

The second uses peated new make matured in Mizunara, adding smoke and shadow beneath the aromatic wood character.

The third is KANOSUKE single malt whisky given approximately two years of finishing in Mizunara casks. It keeps KANOSUKE’s mellow sweetness at the centre while adding another layer of Mizunara aroma.

For readers outside Japan, Mizunara is Japanese oak. It is prized in whisky for distinctive aromatic notes often compared with sandalwood, incense and other fragrant woods.

The peat was inspired by “Take Five”

One of the more unusual ideas behind the blend comes from jazz.

Nakamura connected the fifth Artist Edition with “Take Five”, the jazz standard famous for its five-beat rhythm.

He compared the whisky’s peat to the saxophone entering the arrangement: not an aggressive wall of smoke, but a darker element that slowly appears behind the sweetness, fruit and aromatic wood.

The unpeated components provide body and sweetness, while the peat adds contrast. Their interaction is intended to feel slightly unexpected yet ultimately natural — much like the unusual rhythm of the music.

Slow dilution brings the components together

KANOSUKE also uses a slow-dilution process for this release.

Instead of reducing the whisky to bottling strength quickly, water is introduced gradually. The purpose is to soften and integrate powerful Mizunara and peated components without stripping away their individual identity.

In a whisky themed around Water, the technique has an additional resonance: water is not only the subject of the label and concept, but part of how the final balance is achieved.

Sandalwood, kumquat jam, roasted tea and peat

KANOSUKE describes the colour as golden amber.

The aroma profile includes apple, caramel, vanilla, Japanese cinnamon, sandalwood and roasted green tea.

On the palate are apricot, ginger, white peach, kumquat jam and light honey.

The finish carries gentle honey sweetness, citrus peel and balanced peat for an extended, ripple-like finish.

At 50% ABV, the whisky has concentration, but the intended character is what the distillery calls “quiet intensity” rather than simple power.

Alexander Kori Girard paints Water in motion and stillness

The label artwork was created by Alexander Kori Girard, an artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Girard used watercolour, a medium central to his recent work, to explore Water as both movement and stillness.

Layers of blue create transparency and depth, while darker currents introduce force and direction. The artwork and whisky were developed separately around the same theme, yet both ultimately arrived at a similar contrast between calmness and motion.

KANOSUKE Single Malt Artist Edition #005

Japan | Kagoshima | KANOSUKE Distillery | Single malt Japanese whisky | Three Mizunara-oak components | Peated and unpeated malt | 700ml | 50% ABV | Non-chill filtered | Limited release

The final release in KANOSUKE’s Five Elements Artist Edition, #005 interprets Water through three expressions of Mizunara oak, restrained peat, slow dilution and Alexander Kori Girard’s watercolour art. It is a whisky built around contrast — stillness and movement, sweetness and smoke, depth and flow.

Available at IMAMI

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