In the bottle: Right from the start you are treated to a wash of cocoa, vanilla and a slight bit of cherry that follows along with a sudden burst of strong/sweet/dry awamori notes that you can often find with Umi no Kuni. Once you get a little oxygen in the bottle what comes out is fragrant and almost perfumey; however, considering everything that you can find on the nose, the alcohol is practically nonexistent, even at 43%. Overall, this is already an amazing bottle of Awamori and builds a lot of anticipation for this 15 year old bottle will deliver in the glass.

On the rocks: Uminokuni knocks it out of the park again with this 15 year offering, this is easily one of the smoothest Awamori I have ever had. The important part is that smoothness does not in any way take away from the impact notes, you still get the full range of big flavors from rice, cocoa, vanilla and custard, each with a perfect amount of sweetness, clay dryness. Interestingly, the cherry notes only appeared on the finish, while still very nice, where not as up front as I thought they might be. Overall, an absolute smash and something 

Straight: Wow, Uminokuni 15 year is unbelievably smooth and maybe one of the best I have ever had neat in the glass. Right from the start, you get a wash sweet rice awamori notes, most notably, cocoa, vanilla and that bit of cherry found on the nose which linger nicely before fading into some dryer, more earthy flavors. The finish keeps mostly to the sweeter flavors and the 43% does its job by bringing the softer cherry more to the forefront, kind of reminds me a little of cherry coke or cherry DP without the bubbles.

Paired with Chocolate: Kaldi 70% cocoa, another interesting match, the cherry notes burst open and meld with the chocolate to create a dark cherry chocolate dessert type vibe, as mentioned many times, it is time that chefs start to experiement with shochu and Awamori in desserts; absolutely amazing.