It's Cherry Blossom Season: Toast Spring With Cherrywood Whiskies

March 19, 2024 –––––– David Fleming, , , ,

Cherry blossom season is upon us, marking the start of spring. The flowering has already begun in some countries across the northern hemisphere, and it’s most prominently celebrated in Japan, where the sakura (cherry blossom) is the national flower. The blooming is a major occasion for the Japanese and carries great meaning, as cherry blossoms are seen as a symbol of life’s joy and beauty as well as its transience.

But it’s also simply a time for Japan to celebrate spring. Picnic blankets are laid out beneath the flowering cherry boughs in parks and gardens around the country, and while sake is the traditional tipple, cherrywood whiskies have also become part of the scene. Cherrywood finishing is a fairly recent phenomenon in the whisky world. In Japan, Suntory created Essence of Suntory cherrywood finished whisky in 2020, and Japan today has the highest number of whiskies using sakura wood—Hibiki has honored the cherry blossom with Hibiki Blossom Harmony, and other Japanese whisky makers using cherrywood include Mars Shinshu, Chichibu, Ohishi, and Matsui.

Cherrywood has also been used by distillers outside Japan in recent years. From Ireland, Irish Distillers released its Method & Madness Wild Cherry Wood label in 2019, while Teeling Whiskey chose cherry wood casks for an expression in its Wonders of Wood series. In the U.S., last year Bardstown Bourbon Co. offered a rye finished in hybrid cherry and oak barrels, the customized barrels built with alternating cherry and oak staves in its Origin Serries. Additionally, some distillers have used cherrywood to smoke their grains. California’s Sonoma Distilling Co. offers its Cherrywood Smoked Rye and Cherrywood Smoked Bourbon, with founder Adam Spiegel suggesting the use of California cherry trees to give the whiskey a bit of local flavor.

Whether in finishing or maturation, cherry is a difficult wood to work with, which is why it’s mostly used for finishing rather than full maturation. It’s more porous than oak, creating rapid interaction between the liquid and the wood. Like Bardstown, Teeling opted for casks that were hybrids, with staves alternating between oak and cherry, to allow the cherry-driven notes to stay atop the main, base oak-aged composition of the whiskey. At lrish Distillers, master distiller Kevin O’Gorman recalled how cherrywood tested the distilling team’s “persistence, composure, and patience.” Green and wood-sap flavors initially were too much in evidence, but Irish Distillers noticed that seasoning the casks first with whiskey got rid of the more harsh notes.

The cherry blossom season is also cause for cheer in the U.S., where the most high-profile spot for viewing blossoms is Washington, D.C.—the capital’s famous cherry trees were a gift from the Japanese in 1909, and Chichibu’s 2023 one-off edition of its single malt has fanciful label art showing U.S. Commodore and Japan voyager Matthew Perry enjoying a dram of whisky beneath the cherry blossoms. Cherry pies and other cherry-themed items begin popping up on hotel and restaurant menus around the capital during the season. But there are also plenty of other great spots across America to enjoy the cherry blossoms, including The Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, along with other major cherry blossom destinations in St. Louis, Macon (Georgia), San Francisco, St. Louis, Portland (Oregon), Dallas, and elsewhere.

What do cherrywood-finished whiskies taste like?

First off, cherrywood doesn’t create cherry-flavored whisky, so banish that thought. Cherrywood tends to lend floral notes and sweet flavors of pomegranate, dried red berries—and yes, dried cherries—along with dried prunes, raisins, and sultanas, all tempered by gentle spice.