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TL;DR

• Yoichi NAS: 45% ABV, no age statement, $75–100 US retail, generally available. The most direct expression of Yoichi’s coal-fired house character.
• Yoichi 10 Year: 45% ABV, 10 years, $150–200 US retail, allocated. The same distillery character with a decade of Hokkaido cask development layered into it.
• Both sit at the same proof. The decision is about what ten years inside a Yoichi warehouse adds — and whether that addition is worth roughly double the price.

The pours

Pour both expressions into tulip glasses and nose them before you look at the labels. The coal smoke arrives in both — Yoichi is the only distillery still firing its stills directly with coal, a production choice that marks every drop that leaves the site, regardless of age — but what sits behind that smoke is where a decade of difference starts to show itself.

The NAS smells of smoke and coastal salt, dried citrus, something faintly resinous. It arrives quickly and states its case plainly. The 10 Year’s smoke is present at the same address but arrives through more developed fruit: dried apricot, a suggestion of dark stone fruit, an oak presence that the NAS’s younger components haven’t accumulated yet. The coal-fire character in the 10 Year sits inside the glass like a structural element; in the NAS it sits on top, more visible but less integrated.

This gap is the article.

Bottle specs, side by side

	Yoichi NAS	Yoichi 10 Year
ABV	45%	45%
Age	No age statement	10 years
Status	Current, generally available	Current, allocated
US retail (2026)	$75–100	$150–200
Distillery	Yoichi, Hokkaido	Yoichi, Hokkaido
Owner	Nikka Whisky (Asahi Group)	Nikka Whisky (Asahi Group)

Both share 45% ABV — Nikka didn’t use proof as a signal of seniority between the two expressions, which keeps the comparison clean. You are not paying for extra alcohol.

The Yoichi distillery was founded in 1934 by Masataka Taketsuru on Hokkaido’s western coast. The production story — the coal-fired pot stills, the Shakotan Peninsula sea air, the specific choice Taketsuru made to build on a coast that resembled the Scottish distilling regions he trained in — is covered in the Yoichi distillery profile. What matters for this comparison: the house character is strong and specific, and ten years doesn’t erase it. It develops it.

Nose, palate, finish: the NAS

Nose: coal smoke arrives first and clearly, more surface-level than structural. Coastal salt and dried citrus follow quickly — citrus peel rather than fresh fruit. There’s a faint resinous note underneath, and the spirit reads as relatively young through the nose, showing its components more separately than unified.

Palate: the coal-fire character declares itself at entry, then the 45% holds the frame without thinning it. Mid-palate brings a dry oakiness, a brief citrus-peel bitterness, and then the distillery’s saline coastal quality running through the second half. The components are legible as distinct things.

Finish: medium length, ending on char and salt. A definite terminal point. Not a bottle that lingers past its natural close.

For the price range, the NAS makes Yoichi’s production identity accessible without allocation logistics. That’s its argument in a sentence.

Nose, palate, finish: the 10 Year

Nose: the same smoke, but thicker, sitting within dried fruit rather than above it. Dried apricot is the clearest note, with a dark chocolate suggestion at the edges. The salt is present but quieter, the oak more prominent. Ten years of Hokkaido temperature cycling — genuine seasonal extremes, not a temperate climate’s gentle swing — has pulled more from the cask and pushed those wood-derived compounds into the mid-register of the nose.

Palate: more unified at entry than the NAS. The smoke and oak arrive together rather than in sequence, and the mid-palate carries both through without the citrus-bitterness spike the NAS shows. The coastal salinity is still there but holds a supporting role; the dried fruit and wood take the foreground. Where the NAS’s components are audible as separate elements, the 10 Year has had time to argue itself into a single voice.

Finish: longer. Oak spice and dried fruit through the close, smoke trailing behind them rather than punctuating the end. The finish of the 10 Year is where the premium most directly shows up — it keeps going past the point where the NAS has already finished.

What ten years in a Yoichi warehouse actually does

Three things shift meaningfully over a decade at this distillery.

Oak integration. The coal-fire character in younger Yoichi is a surface note — prominent, identifiable, but sitting on top of the other elements rather than woven through them. By 10 years it has pulled into the fruit and wood layers in a way that makes the whole whisky read as more unified. If you want to hear the coal-fire signature at its most prominent and unmediated, the NAS is actually the sharper demonstration of it. The 10 Year makes it more sophisticated but less immediately readable.

Fruit depth. The dried fruit that appears in both expressions is different in kind, not just degree. The NAS carries citrus-adjacent fruit: present, clean, slightly abstract. The 10 Year’s fruit is more developed and more specific — dried apricot and dark stone fruit, identifiable enough to track across pours. The extra cask time and Hokkaido’s temperature range have given the maturation more to work with.

Finish length. The gap between the two is most audible at the end of the palate. The NAS closes on a definite note — coal, salt, medium duration — and stops. The 10 Year’s oak contribution keeps arriving through the close and fades more gradually. For drinking neat and unhurried, this difference is real and consistent.

What doesn’t change: the distillery’s identity. Both bottles are unmistakably Yoichi. The coal-fired house character runs through both, the coastal salinity is present in both, and anyone who knows the distillery from either expression will recognize it immediately in the other. Ten years adds to the Yoichi character without replacing it.

Who should buy which

Buy the NAS if you want to understand what Yoichi is before committing to allocated pricing, or if cocktails and highballs are part of your use case (the coal-fire character holds well through dilution and carbonation), or if the allocation logistics of the 10 Year aren’t worth the overhead for a drinking bottle. The NAS is also the right expression to use as the Yoichi reference point when comparing against Miyagikyo — that comparison runs on the NAS in the Yoichi vs Miyagikyo piece precisely because it strips the age variable out.

Buy the 10 Year if you’re collecting and want an explicit age statement for comparability across your cellar, or if finish length is a priority for your drinking context, or if you want to hear what a decade of specific maturation does to this particular production system. The Yoichi 10 Year complete guide covers the allocation logistics in full.

Buy both if you drink seriously and have the shelf space. Having them open at the same time is the most direct way to hear the decade’s work — not described, but tasted. One bottle of each sits comfortably within the annual budget of anyone who takes Japanese single malt as a primary category.

Where to find them in 2026

Yoichi NAS

The NAS reaches specialist retailers with reasonable regularity — not an allocated release, though availability varies by region and market cycle.

The Whisky Exchange carries Yoichi NAS as part of their core Japanese range. UK and EU buyers have the most consistent access, and their notification system is useful if stock is temporarily out.

Browse Yoichi at The Whisky Exchange

Master of Malt lists Yoichi NAS with a 30ml tasting sample option — useful if you are coming to the coal-fired character for the first time and want to confirm it before committing to a 70cl.

Check Yoichi NAS at Master of Malt

Yoichi 10 Year

The 10 Year is allocated. International availability is limited, and retail bottles clear quickly when they arrive.

Dekanta is the most consistent source for documented Japanese-market bottles, including age-stated Nikka expressions that don’t reach Western markets in volume. Their Yoichi catalog restocks on no fixed schedule — check it regularly if you’re targeting the 10 Year.

Search Yoichi 10 Year at Dekanta

Whisky Auctioneer carries the 10 Year through most monthly auctions. For buyers who missed retail allocation, the secondary market here has liquid supply. Check several recent realized prices before bidding — the spread within the secondary band is real, and tracking three or four recent sales calibrates your ceiling before you commit.

Track Yoichi at Whisky Auctioneer

For buyers building a complete Nikka range across both distillery expressions and the blended lineup, the best Nikka whisky guide sets purchase priorities across the full portfolio.

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The NAS earns its position at its price. The 10 Year earns its premium if oak integration and finish length are what you’re buying. Run the comparison yourself when the opportunity arrives — same distillery, same proof, one decade of difference is one of the cleaner experiments available in Japanese single malt.

All prices are 2026 US retail estimates. Confirm current availability at each retailer before purchase.