Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
High Coast Distillery, formerly known as Box Distillery, sits in the High Coast region of northern Sweden — one of the most geographically remote whisky-producing areas in Europe, where the climate produces slow, careful maturation in conditions that have more in common with Scandinavia’s extreme seasons than with Scotland’s maritime temperance.
The Advanced expression from Box is built around an unusual premise: it allows the drinker to taste the different parts of a distillation run separately, understanding how the middle cut — the portion collected as usable spirit — sits within the broader continuum of what comes off the still.
What Middle Cut Tasting Reveals
During distillation, the spirit that flows off the still changes character continuously. The initial fraction — foreshots — contains high concentrations of methanol and lighter compounds; it is discarded as unsafe. The final fraction — feints — becomes progressively heavier and oilier as the run proceeds; too much of it creates a rough, harsh spirit. The middle cut, between these two points, is where the clean, well-structured distillate lives.
What Box Advanced does is bottle these fractions separately, allowing drinkers to taste the boundaries of the middle cut and understand viscerally why distillers make the cuts where they do. It is an educational exercise in the literal sense: a way of learning through direct sensory experience what is usually explained abstractly.
For anyone interested in the mechanics of whisky production rather than just the finished product, tasting the Box Advanced set changes how you understand what you are drinking.
High Coast / Box expressions are available at Bar Little Happiness. Read the full Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/box-advanced-middle-cut-tasting/
Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
Open Mon–Sat 7PM–12:30AM, Sun 7PM–midnight
No cover charge. Walk-ins welcome.
english.little-happiness.jp