Counterglow – Nikka Days

Summer is the perfect time for sipping light and refreshing highballs. And what better way to enjoy those evenings than with a combination of light Japanese whisky with melon, sake and matcha?

For their Days whisky, Nikka blends grain whisky from their Coffey Still with malt whisky from the Miyagiko and Yoichi distilleries. It is meant to be light and drunk at every suitable occasion. The Nikka Days does not meet all the requirements to call itself Japanese Whisky. In the end, the whisky is bottled at 40 % ABV.

Very mellow whisky

The Nikka Days starts off with clear grain whisky notes. Furthermore, you can find some cereals and a slight sweetness. As the description by Nikka goes, this whisky really is smooth. However, it also lacks a bit of flavour. However, it does serve as a good entry to whisky from Japan and works in highballs.

A Japanese melon highball

I wanted to combine the Nikka Days with other Japanese ingredients for an ‘easy’ sipper. However, in the end the drink turned out more complex than I thought. In this case, I added some Junmai Daiginjo sake and some matcha liqueur. To balance the sweetness I used lemon juice. To make the highball into a highball, I used a honey dew lemonade.

**Mix 50 % Angostura Bitters and 50 % The Bitter Truth Aromatic Bitters – bottle in clean dripper bottle.

The drink starts with a great combination of whisky and melon notes. The matcha liqueur really works with those flavours. Furthermore, the sake and the lemon balance the other ingredients. All in all, the drink is the perfect thirst quencher during summer!

*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. The whisky was provided by Borco Markenimport.