Approximately how many Karuizawa whisky casks remain after production ceased?

This question hits the nail on the head, but the answer isn't a simple number; it's more like a story.

Let's put it this way: the Karuizawa distillery ceased production around 2000, but at that time, there were still many casks of well-aged whisky spirit left at the distillery. Initially, the parent company (Mercian, famous for its wines, later acquired by Kirin Brewery) didn't pay much attention to them, and these casks quietly remained in storage.

The turning point came in 2011. A British company called "Number One Drinks" teamed up with a very famous French spirits merchant, "La Maison du Whisky (LMDW)", and together they purchased all the remaining Karuizawa casks at that time.

How many casks were in this batch? The publicly disclosed number at the time was 364 casks.

These 364 casks were essentially Karuizawa's last "bloodline". After the purchase, these precious assets were transferred to another now very famous Japanese whisky distillery, Chichibu Distillery, who were asked to look after them.

Now, to answer your core question: How many are left?

Over the past decade or so, these two companies have been continuously bottling and releasing the whisky from these casks. Some are "single cask bottlings" (where the entire contents of one cask are bottled individually, with the cask number noted on the bottle), while others are blended from several casks to create a small batch. Each release means one, two, or several fewer Karuizawa casks in the world.

Therefore, the most accurate answer is: The exact number of remaining casks is a trade secret, known only to the cask holders themselves.

However, according to estimates from whisky enthusiasts and experts, judging by their release frequency and volume over the years, the number of unbottled, intact Karuizawa casks remaining today should be very, very small, possibly only a few dozen, or even fewer. It's essentially the ultimate "once it's gone, it's gone" or "drink one bottle, one less exists" situation.

Occasionally, some "legends" circulate in the market, suggesting that a very few individual casks might have been sold to private individuals or other companies before the main batch was acquired, but such instances are extremely rare and impossible to verify.

In summary, you can understand it this way: Karuizawa's raw spirit inventory is like a finite treasure, most of which has been dug up, with the remaining small amount being carefully released little by little. This is why Karuizawa whisky is so expensive today, because it truly is "liquid gold" where every drop consumed means one less drop exists.