Bottling Dates for Yamazaki, Hibiki, Hakushu

Part 2

In Part 1, general bottle codes were discussed as well as specifics on some distilleries, including Suntory.  These bottle codes are batch numbers that can reveal what year a whisky was bottled. Suntory has only printed/etched codes on their bottles of Yamazaki, Hibiki, and Hakushu since approximately 2006.  So, what about dating bottles before then?

Let’s start with the introduction of the core expressions, charting from when the first Suntory Single Malt was released in 1984 from Yamazaki. 

EXPRESSION	AGE	YEARS AVAILABLE
Yamazaki	NAS	1984 - 1986
Yamazaki	12	1986 - Present
Hibiki	NAS	1989 - 2000
Yamazaki	18	1992 - Present
Hibiki	21	1994 - Present
Hakushu	12	1994 - Present
Yamazaki	10	1995 - 2012
Hibiki	30	1997 - Present
Yamazaki	25	1998 - Present
Hakushu	10	1998 - 2012
Hibiki	17	2000 - 2018
Hakushu	18	2006 - Present
Hakushu	25	2008 - Present
Hibiki	12	2009 - 2015
Yamazaki	NAS*	2012 - Present
Hakushu	NAS*	2012 - Present
Hibiki Harmony	NAS	2015 - Present

(*Distiller's Reserve)

Most of the information above comes from the Yamazaki Distillery Museum as well as the Timeline on Suntory's website.  We'll have to see if Suntory's May 2018 announcement that Hakushu 12 and Hibiki 17 would be suspended that year until supply catches up with demand holds true.  I suspect those expressions will be out of production, with some stock being held back and distributed sporadically in subsequent years.  This strategy occurred previously when Hibiki 12 was discontinued in 2015, but continued to show up here and there over the next couple years, at least in the United States.  The only difference being that Hibiki 12 has not, and likely will not, return.  [UPDATE: Hakushu 12 officially back in core line-up as of 2021.]

Speaking of Hibiki 17, there are those out there that believe that the original Hibiki No Age Statement (NAS) from 1989 should actually be considered Hibiki 17 and not NAS.  I'll dive into that mess another time.  But for purposes here, my research shows that the first time a 17 Year age statement appeared on a Hibiki bottle was in 2000/2001.  At any rate, in order to break down bottling dates even further, we need to look at the label for certain markers and design changes.

Markers

Tax Classification (1984-1989)

Katakana characters at the
bottom left translate to
"Whisky Special Class" 

Isolating the two 
Katakana characters 
referring to tax code

From the seventies until the end of eighties, there was a requirement for whisky bottles sold in Japan to categorize their contents as either First Class, Second Class, or Special Class.  Essentially, this classification was based on the alcohol content and determined the amount of tax that would be charged.  In the pic to the right, the first 5 Katakana characters are probably familiar – they translate to “whisky” - while the last two designate the Tax Class.  If your bottle has those last two characters, then it was bottled mid-1989 or prior.  If your bottle just has the “whisky” characters and nothing else, then it was bottled after that.  This marker only applies to the first 3 expressions on the chart above.

Corporate Logo: Lion Crest (1984-1991) vs. Hibiki Crest (1991-2004) 

Lion Crest circa 1989

Hibiki Crest 1991-2004

Suntory’s Lion Crest logo evolved over many years until it appeared as shown on the left in the late 1980s.  The Lion Crest is most useful in determining a first edition Hibiki Whisky.
In 1991, a new corporate identity was adopted, the Hibiki Crest (sometimes referred to as the Flower Crest, among others). And it can be found on bottles until at least 2004. Oddly enough, the Hibiki Crest is not directly related to Hibiki Blended Whisky.  In fact, the logo actually pre-dates Hibiki Whisky by 3 years.  For more on the origins of the Hibiki Crest, click through to this blog.

Malt Designation: Pure Malt (1984-2003) vs. Single Malt (2004-on)

Hakushu Pure Malt 12
(Japan Bottling 1997)

Hakushu Single Malt 12
(US Bottling 2018)

Suntory labeled their single malts from Yamazaki and Hakushu as “Pure Malts” from 1984-2003.  As far as the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) is concerned, a Pure Malt equates to a vatting of single malts from more than one distillery.  Japan has no such regulatory association governing their whisky. And while true Japanese whisky has always sought to emulate the traditional Scotch-making process, they obviously do not have to follow any SWA definitions.

So why didn’t they designate their single malts for what they were?  Marketing and tradition, I suspect.  “Purity” is just a better selling point in Japan.  I’m guessing the reason they changed to labeling them as Single Malts was to finally get more in line with the rest of the world, to improve international sales, and so their whisky could be entered into the correct category in competitions.  Also note that circa 2003, there was a transition period where Yamazaki and Hakushu were classified as both Pure Malt and Single Malt on the same label!

Hakushu Pure/Single Malt 12
(Japanese Bottling 2003)

Bottle Volume: 760ml vs. 750ml vs. 700ml

Japan has utilized a variety of unusual bottle capacities over the years for their core expressions, including 600, 660, 720, 760ml, among others.  When Yamazaki was first introduced in 1984, the bottle contained 760 milliliters and appears to stay that way until approximately 1988, when the standard was updated to 750ml.  I assume the change was implemented so Suntory could export to the US and EU standards.

In 1990, the EU determined their standard bottling would shift from 750ml to 700ml. However, this appears to not have been implemented until 1992. Many assume that Japanese bottlers adjusted at the same time, but that is not the case. (And why would they?  They're not part of the EU.)  This became immediately apparent when I looked at my 750ml Yamazaki Pure Malt 10, a product that didn’t exist until 1995.  At first glance, it appears that Japan switched to primarily 700ml around 1998 with the introduction of Yamazaki 25.

Or did they? I’ve only recently discovered evidence that both 700ml and 750ml bottlings of the same expression existed in Japan in the late 90s to possibly the early-2000s.  Same exact expressions with unique UPC barcodes and different volumes – talk about confusing.  Still researching this head scratcher.  So, unfortunately, there is no definitive marker point for volume change from 750 to 700.

Now, with the information above, we should be able to narrow down some bottling dates within a range of years.  Take the Hakushu 12 Pure Malt above.  That expression was first introduced in 1994.  The Pure Malt designation lasted until 2003. (While the Hibiki logo appears on the bottle, that information is superseded by the Pure Malt information.) But that's still a pretty big range, 1994-2003. It IS 750ml, which leads me to believe that it is a 90s bottling - but, that marker is a little murky as I mentioned.  So how did I confidently claim in the caption that the bottle in question was from 1997?  For that answer, we'll have to scrape the bottom the bottle in Part 3.