Japanese Whiskey

What an unbelievably stunning fragrance this is. Recently I received a Memories of Japan discovery set and, excluding Kimono, every fragrance in the set was great, they all smelled of incredible quality, great blends and really natural. Japanese Whiskey wasn't really too stunning on paper but it still smelled really neat, it was a sweet and woody clary sage and chestnut scent. I didn't get any whiskey at all and I was a bit underwhelmed given what I had heard about this fragrance before trying it. Made it my scent of the day today and holy, what a stunning fragrance this is. I was immediately hit by a strong smell of very alcoholic whiskey backed by the same woody chestnut and clary sage I smelled on paper. My mom and my sister almost immediately told me this smelled amazing and walked up to me to smell it. I also couldn't stop getting my arm up to my nose to keep smelling it, the slight sugary sweetness to this is intoxicating. The realistic whiskey scent isn't really noticeable up close, I only smelled in in the air as I walked around. Japanese Whiskey is a bit linear as the dried down skin scent is pretty much unchanged from the opening, just a tad bit less sweet but overall it's basically the same. I'm absolutely going to get a bottle of this at some point, it's totally worth its price in my opinion. Performance wasn't as amazing as the scent but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt because a) I sprayed it off a sample and b) I just love the scent that much. Projection is moderate and sillage is light but persistent, you'll catch very light whiffs of this for a few hours. Sprayed from a bottle this might have a denser sillage. Longevity is good, it's been around 7 and a half hours and I can still smell it a bit faintly on my skin, so this can reach 8 hours without much of a problem.

I won't lie I braced for impacted before I sprayed this. I love whiskey notes in fragrance but those initial blasts of straight liquor make me nauseous sometimes. Too many bad hangovers and now I gotta hold my breath for these types to dry off before enjoying them. But wow is this special. The smoothest, softest, sweetest whiskey I have ever smelled on a fragrance. There is something lightly fruity about this, kinda reads like a super ripe fig honestly. That combined with the delicious blend of oat and chestnut makes this smell like a fig newton. Not at all what I expected but now I wonder how I ever lived without this? My god. It's gentle, well rounded, grassy with a touch of honeyed fruit. Not even particularly Whiskey forward. I'm very pleased. My only complaint is that it doesn't have much strength or reach. Wish it was a bit louder.

Literally my favorite perfume of all time. Keeps smelling better and better with the dry down. The sweet scent of the whiskey is delicious but not overpowering, and is perfectly complemented by the woodiness. Every time I wear this, I feel like I'm a sophisticated businessman at a high-end cocktail bar (lol). The sillage and longevity are moderate, and I wish it were a bit stronger, given its higher price point. As most others have stated, it is only available in a 5-oz option at approximately $380, whereas all other d'Annam perfumes are 50ml and retail for around $160. If this weren't my go-to cold-weather scent (I'm a male btw), I would definitely be a bit annoyed. Overall, I recommend anyone looking for a unique winter/fall scent who's willing to break a bit of their bank.

Wow, I am unexpectedly enamored with this one. I bought the discovery set that includes Japanese Whiskey and didn't expect to enjoy this scent because I don't normally go for gourmands, my partner normally goes for aquatics and I was much more excited about the verdant scents in the rest of the box. But this one is so mysterious, complex, warm and sexy. I enjoy the depth and changes it goes through on the skin, it does have a light scent of whiskey but like others have said its not straight up alcoholic. It dries down to a sultry, clean woodsy scent that's rounded off by vanilla that isn't too sweet. Its balanced, not overpowering, and inviting.

Revisiting this again and there's no doubt that this is my favorite from the house. The three standouts for me are Japanese whiskey, tokyo nights and through the forest. JW is probably my favorite boozy style fragrance that I've come across. No only does it have an amazing whiskey note that somehow doesn't make me smell like an alcoholic, but the supporting notes; smoky, creamy, semi sweet, woody - just add to the composition giving it a cozy, complete and intriguing twist on a scent profile I usually avoid. And wow what a dry down! I doubt I will buy a full bottle (way above my budget), but I think I will pick up a 10 ml and enjoy it fully.

Well, my like for boozy fragrances did not end here. This is a marvel. Really fantastic. One of my absolute favorites in the boozy category. For those of you that turn your nose up to Jazz Club, you need to give this a try. I like Jazz Club. But it pales in comparison to this. Gorgeous bottle. Large bottle. One size. Which is fantastic for collectors. Not so fantastic for those that aren't ready to shell out nearly $400. But, for what you get, it may be a better value than some other high end Houses. With this being so great, I will have to do my own soul searching in determining if I want to make that leap. Just fabulous.

This smells fantastic and I'm not usually the type that enjoys boozy scents. The Whiskey is very realistic like moonlight samurai (but JW is much superior fragrance imo). Other than baraonda, it's the best whiskey note I've smelled on a fragrance. But it's not all whiskey, the woods are fantastic as well and a background of spice gives it character. So far I am a fan of this house, Vietnamese coffee, through the forest, Tokyo nights, and now Japanese whiskey are all great. My only criticism is their price is up there and you can only buy 150 ml of this fragrance, and they don't do discounters.

Honestly this fragrance is spectacular. Even if you don’t like the smell on paper I encourage you to try it on skin. At first I didn’t know how I felt because of the picture perfect whiskey smell on the opening. But maybe 10 to 15 minutes later it just is incredible. It becomes this smooth, sexy woody, whiskey smell. I’m probably not doing this justice by describing it this way, but this isn’t my strong suit. But the point is This is the best fragrance from this house by far, and is easily worth the price point. That’s not even talking about the beautiful packaging it comes in.

Ok I did not expect this to be so GOOD! I am usually not into this type of scent profile but this somehow works wonderfully. It is perfectly unisex, great for colder weather. It has a slight sweetness that makes it so much more wearable! That sage, oak, barley and sandalwood gives the whiskey a fluffier, more rounded background so it doesn't smell like you spilled alcohol all over yourself. The biggest surprise for me in the Japan Discovery Set! I wish they had it in a smaller bottle though because 350 EUR for a scent is kinda steep.

Japanese Whiskey is a masterclass in realistic boozy fragrances. It greets you with a rich, bourbon-like sweetness—think luscious caramel, crisp green apple, and sun-dried dates dusted with cinnamon—even if the official notes don't admit to them. As it settles, a refined oak accord emerges for a quiet, woody and spicy finish. With impressive projection and solid longevity, it’s a magnetic, year-round scent, though its undeniable "sexiness" might feel a bit dense for the peak of summer.

This is definitely the best fragrance in the d'Annam universe. I was pleasantly surprised to note that it was not boozy smelling to me. The middle and base notes definitely shine in this fragrance. Mellow, smooth, warm, and perfect for the colder months. Very, very pleasantly surprised by this one. I could see it becoming an autumn/winter staple for me.

The packaging and bottle are top notch. I can’t believe someone hasn’t likened this to Iris Malikan. They are definitely in the same vein. This is very nice I get wafts with movement and when there is a breeze. I know layering fragrances is not everyone’s cup of tea but, I can see myself layering this with a vanilla for a little extra depth.

Soft, Smooth, Boozy a very well blended fragrance. Full bottle worthy. Too bad about the price tag. I don't get any other comparisons. I'm not saying this fragrance is completely unique, but this doesn't smell like Baraonda at all. Yes they are both warm , sweet, boozy fragrance but that's about it.

This is amazing! I have both sample sets and this is the one I kept going back to sniff again and again . . . the sample was sprayed on paper about a month ago now and still smells fairly strong. It's so good and so strong/long-lasting. Will look forward to wearing it this Fall/Winter.

Probably the best boozy type fragrance you can get. Seriously. Photorealistic scent of a very smooth, very expensive brand of whiskey. Then dries down to such a pleasurable, soft woody and sweet scent. Very special stuff and the price tag reflects that. 10/10

Gorgeous—the malted barely sinks into the skin. Almost bready. There’s a sweetness that feels round and comforting. Would make a great everyday, signature scent. Breaks my heart that it’s only available as a massive 5oz for $380!

Another well done Scent from D'Annam. It exactly does smell like Whiskey with all it's typical notes, the wood from the barrel, the booziness from the alcohol, the sweet notes from the chestnut. Very realistic and wearable.

Such a beautiful slight boozy/woody scent. The chestnut note adds a little sweetness which makes this so beautiful and gives a holiday vibe. Just wish it was a little stronger and projected better for the price.

Ive never been the kind of person who enjoys boozy fragrances, but this is really brilliant. I can't wait to be able to have the full size of it.

I love how the chestnut note adds a consistent sweetness to this. It's incredible in every way

This is a masterpiece. Boozy, sweet, cozy. One of the best fragrances I've smelled.

a softer and classier baraonda so good love it 1st sniff

Soft spicy opening with slightly sweet, thick and lactonic woody dry down. Quite unique, smooth, clean and feminine leaning unisex frag. Somehow very lactonic in a nutty, sandal-woody and musky manner. Somewhat slightly synthetic, probably due to the alcoholic/ sandalwood note that's present. The booze in here is not all that as i expected, very subtle. The lactonic note is coming from the woody note, hance the slight synthetic behavior. Overall a good scent.

I am getting the whiskey with heavy notes of the oak cask and a sweet malt, chestnut. Quite cozy, winter holidays, nighttime. Not everyone in the reviews is interpreting the notes as boozy, but to my nose it is coming off like a heavily oaked spirit. Maybe not as realistic as Baraonda, but it’s there. Leaning a bit too much on the sweet woody side for me. Actually reminds me of Boise Corsé vaguely with the overly sweet woods.

Boozy, nutty/woody, and slightly sweet like a rice treat. It's probably the tamest boozy fragrances I've smelled. Maybe it's my nose, but I can barely detect it in the air after an hour and it's almost a skin scent at 2 hrs. I love Japanese Whiskey, I just wish it didn't become a skin scent so fast. Definitely has its uses like a night out where you want to smell special but not stand out too much.

This fragrance is simply addicting. I have no other ways to describe it better than that. I have a sample from the Japan discovery set, and just from the first spray I already started looking for a bottle. Sadly it's only 5oz which hikes up the price. I don't need that much of any fragrance, regardless of how I like it. If a 50ml ever existed, it would've been my fastest purchase ever.

My favorite of the memorys of japan discovery kit. Whiskey, and sage opening gives me an impression of a fancy bar, very lovely. Dry down is very nice as well. Almost comes off chocolatey with the chestnut, smells like nutella, but without all the sugar. Like this one, but disappointed that the 150ml is the only size being sold. Seems to be the common complaint with this scent.

Used to love it at first, but now that I took my time and tried it on skin. I don't like it that much. I think the barley note it throwing me off. Remind me of dried beer on the floor. But the oak+whiskey combo is not bad at all. Very clever.

This smells exactly like the notes. Whisky, with some smooth-sih wood and a small hint of chestnut. In the background i smells something hay-like, that kinda leads the scent. I kinda imagine that his is how Musashi would smell like.

This would have been a win for me but in the dry down i lost the whiskey and the sage was quite strong.

tokyo nights before the intervention and the aa meetings

I like the aroma the perfume provides. 7/10

Boozy and sweet, but not too much. Certainly woodsy. I get a slight chocolate note. Really digging the chestnut. Smooth and leans masculine. A lot of alcohol scents smell entirely too alcohol. This is very wearable and masculine. Though I would find it hard to wear often since I am not a huge fan of this scent category. I also get a slight BO note. Normally I would attribute this to cumin but I think it's the barley! Settles to be softly sweet but disappears by the end of the day.

Woody, whiskey, and chestnut. The sandalwood adds a tiny hint of creaminess. It’s somewhat dense but not overbearing. Probably better in cooler temperature. To me, this leans more masculine. It’s interesting. Update: 10/05/2025. I sprayed this again, and I would like this if the sandalwood note was dialed way down. I often have trouble with discernible sandalwood.

I agree with @Gorontoas. The very first moment has a hint of alcohol, but after that it's nothing like whiskey. Werther's is close, but grainier and woodier. Not unpleasant, but definitely not the "photorealistic whiskey" everyone keeps going on about. Which is disappointing.

Kinda what you would expect, sweet, warm, dry and woody. I wanted to like this soooo bad but something about the chestnut was synthetic and cloying on my skin. On the bright side it wasn’t too boozy which was good. Unisex.

It sure doesn’t smell like whiskey. Smells like Werther’s Original candy, then dries down to a little bit of sandalwood.

Just too unserious, too synthetic for the price point

they should call this japanese candle

I dislike beer so this was an immediate no. I get the barley note fairly strongly.

Dannam is a Vietnamise house that creates scents to celebrate Asian Heritage. Their second chapter collection is fully dedicated to Japan as they try to encapsulate Japanese heritage in 9 different scents. One of these is this beautiful Japanese Whiskey. What I am surprised about this whiskey accord, is its complexity and, at the same time, its levity. The culprit fot its peculiar aroma is that the woody note used here is the Mizunara oak. Some of the Japanese whiskeys are barelled into mizunara barrel, but this oak is not particularly suited to barrel-making. The wood is difficult to manipulate, permeable and prone to leaking. These Japanese oak trees also take 2-3x longer than traditional oaks to mature, and when made into casks, don’t reveal their peak flavors until after at least 15 years of aging. It’s a fascinating story that’s equal parts Japanese craft, history and chance. What I get is a unique liquor with sweet and spicy complexity, featuring distinct notes of sandalwood, coconut, and incense, The profile here is much more delicate and rounded than the stronger vanilla and coconut notes from American oak, and it develops a multi-layered character over time. The clary sage in the opening imparts airyness and a refreshing allure. There is a synth sandalwood note here that does not comeoff too creamy, but seems to round the spicy-incensy profile. From the initial freshness and lightness, the scent developes into something cozy, slightly ambery with chestnut undertones. Something to experiment and to enjoy. Consider following me on IG @alexolympia6

I don't drink a lot of whiskey, I don't know the difference between whiskey or scotch or bourbon or rye. But if we do have whiskey in the house, it is usually a Japanese variety. We like Nikka or Hibiki. I think they have a slightly smoky, caramel-y, sandwoody, vanillic, chestnutty...whiskeyness? I don't talk about beverages as much as I talk about perfume, so obviously I've got some work to do if I ever want to become a whiskey reviewer, hehe. SO, in this fragrance, imagine the aspects of those notes, but you've cooked all the alcholic stinging sharpness out of it. You stir in the tiniest bit of sugar, and then you hand whisk the shit out of it like people did with that viral Dalgona coffee recipe during the early months of the Pandemic. Now you have this pillowy whipped, frothy cloud of slightly smoky, caramel-y, sandwoody, vanillic, chestnutty whiskeyness minus the boozy aspect. And you wear it like a pair of cozy handknit fingerless cashmere mitts. This is a lovely cozy wonder of a scent, but it is $380, and I am not sure it's THAT lovely, cozy, or wonderful!

This is an exquisitely crafted complex fragrance, interesting to get your nose on. There are boozy whiskey notes with the oak which is quite spectacular, similar to drinking a fine scotch. There is sweet and savory with nuts and woods in the base. The layers are dramatic and intense. I think this does lean masculine because I really picture a sophisticated old money globetrotting man wearing this. While I appreciate the artistry the savory (almost like soy sauce) notes in this line makes it something I would want to smell in a glass or in a restaurant more than I would wear it as a fragrance. This is probably the best in the collection (reflected by price) but they all have a very distinct Japanese aesthetic that you must really be enamored by for nostalgia or some other obsession to want to wear this. I see it as more of a novelty perfume to show off to friends like a fine whiskey than anything practical .

I did find the opening of this to mostly convey some kind of dry and smoothly distilled liquor. There is a sense of mild, unsmoked woodiness here, ...from oak and santal. The other listed notes of clary, barley (malt?), and chestnut are likely in the blend, ....but none displayed in an overtly forward manner. Actually, the clear color and relatively mild scent made me think of a beverage like shochu, ...though I do understand there are Japanese varieties of oak-aged malt whiskey as well. Still this didn't fully recreate that sweetly dark-oaked (and sometimes smoky), sense of whiskey I'm familiar with. Overall, I imagine this scent used like a skin tonic-cologne. One with a mildly aromatic-woody profile.

I just sampled this again from a D'Annam vial. I had previously sampled it from a larger tester bottle in a shop. The two seem to smell quite different. The vial smells exactly like a splash of whiskey, while the bottle had a more ascerbic, tonic or toner quality to it. Even the color has changed. The liquid in the vial is noticeable darker than the liquid in the large bottle! If anything, one should expect the larger vessel to look darker. I like both versions of this scent, though they are both rather weak as well. That hasn't changed. However, if one enjoys the smell of whiskey as a cologne, one could just use whiskey. I'm being serious.

This was one of the most photo-realistic depictions of whiskey I have ever come across -- so much so, it triggered my gag reflex as it reminded of getting half-cut on some NASTY Johnny Walker back in high school. Really realistic. With that said, this is not how I would want to smell! But the mixing is expert and amazing. The dry down is quite pleasant and a soft green-woody base, with small notes of floral and fruit. Not something I could go for, but MAN you gotta try this -- the opening is insane.

I really like this but I don't get any of the listed notes. I get a soft, not quite powdery iris orris melange with some caramelized wood. It's really a caramel and iris scent on me, but a melded, blended smooth tone without being too sweet or too woody. Really nice, quite sheer but warm. Not a whiskey scent at all on my skin, but I like it a lot. If this is whisky, it's more of a sweet cocktail in a boudoir.

Beyond classy. Smells to me like a complex and fresh chestnut cream. Does not read particularly alcoholic to me, which is my preference. This is a strong contrast to Moonlight Samurai, which immediately comes across as alcohol scented. Japanese Whiskey is smooth and beautiful. It smells like an expensive man who isn't trying overly hard to flex his wealth.

A great scent! At least you smell what you see, a real whiskey note. Well crafted and slightly smoky, it is a really good fragrance. (Not sure I want to wear a whiskey fragrance, I must admit...) but it is worth discovering it if you like those kind of edible/ drinkable fragrance. The whole line of fragrances is amazing too!

Nothing is pleasing to people in today’s society. Everyone has something negative to say just about every fragrance that comes out. I learned to overlook people’s comments because I don’t know what the HELL they expect out of a fragrance. This is nice and worth getting your nose on. Disregard the negative feedback.