Miz Kiss
Miz Kiss
8-Year Kentucky 95/5 · Mizunara Finished · Cask Strength
A lighter touch with Mizunara oak on an older Kentucky rye. Where Batch 1 used three finishing components to build complexity, Miz Kiss asks a simpler question: what happens when you let one wood do the work on whiskey that’s already had eight years to develop character on its own?
The Case for Restraint
After Batch 1 and Brazen, we’d explored what layered finishing and aggressive oak influence could do. Miz Kiss was about going the other direction. Less intervention. More trust in the base whiskey.
We started with an 8-year Kentucky-sourced 95/5 rye—older and more developed than the Indiana rye in our earlier releases. At eight years, the spirit has already had a long conversation with its original barrel. The question became: how much does a secondary finish add when the whiskey has already found its voice?
The answer, with Mizunara, is something like a quiet inflection. The Japanese oak doesn’t rewrite the whiskey. It adds a subtle sandalwood quality, a faint coconut sweetness, an almost floral edge that the Kentucky rye didn’t have before. The name says it all—just a kiss of Mizunara. Enough to notice. Not enough to dominate.
Sometimes the boldest move is knowing when to hold back.
About Mizunara Oak
Mizunara (Quercus crispula) is a species of oak native to Japan, Hokkaido, and parts of northeast Asia. It’s been used in Japanese whisky production since the mid-twentieth century—initially out of necessity during wartime, when American and European oak was unavailable, and later by choice as distillers recognized its distinctive character.
Mizunara is notoriously difficult to work with. The wood is softer and more porous than American white oak, which makes it prone to leaking. It grows slowly and is expensive. But the flavor it contributes—sandalwood, coconut, incense, a faintly floral spice—is unlike anything you get from other oak species.
We’ve used Mizunara across multiple releases now, each time dialing the influence differently. In Miz Kiss, the contact time was shorter and the wood was already seasoned from previous use. The result is the gentlest Mizunara expression in our lineup—present but not insistent.