Japanese KitKat fans gain a festive treat with new aged whisky flavour variety
Japanese Nestlé customers are in for a particular treat this Christmas, as the company releases its limited edition whisky flavoured KitKat through its Chocolatory store, that uses 180-day barrel-aged cacao, reports Neill Barston.
The special new festive line is on sale this week and has already been attracting plenty of interest online and on social media – with the region being particularly noted for its inventive releases that have inspired other areas of the world.
As the company explained, KitKat Chocolatory is a specialist store offering premium KitKat made using innovative premium ingredients and methods, under the supervision of Yasumasa Takagi, the chef owner of Le Patissier Takagi, and the concept was the first of its kind in the world upon opening in 2003.
Over the years, Takagi has helped to make the brand even more appealing through the development of several new innovative KITKAT products, with the name “chocolatory” representing a combination of the terms chocolatier and chocolate factory. The store aims to be a shop where customers from many different age groups can interact and experience new fun and breaks by indulging in the attention to quality and detail of chocolatiers and the excitement of a chocolate factory. There are presently seven such stores in Japan.
The latest barrel aged Whisky product uses cacao nibs aged for 180 days in barrels previously utilised for ageing whisky. It is a bitter chocolate for adults that lets consumers enjoy a hint of refined whisky aroma and taste. During this preparation period, the barrels are manually rotated at a pace of once a week and this puts all of the cacao nibs in the barrel into contact with the whisky barrel’s interior.
Consequently, the product adopts this new method that gradually realises uniform whisky aroma and taste. Cacao from Ghana known for its smooth flavour brings out the barrel-derived unique smoky, peat taste cultivated in the beautiful nature on Islay Island located off Scotland’s West Coast, considered a sacred ground for whisky.
