Chichibu Ichiro’s Malt 11 Years Old 2008

Ichiro Akuto built Chichibu in 2008 in a landlocked basin in Saitama, carrying forward a distilling line that ran back through the lost Hanyu distillery. Production is small, around a third of a million litres a year, with floor malting done by hand on occasion and every stage run under one roof. Chichibu loses roughly three to five per cent of each cask a year to evaporation, near double the Scottish rate, so a young whisky here carries the depth of a much older one.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. At 11 years the accelerated maturation has driven deep oak interaction, ellagitannins framing the fruit with a dry, spiced grip. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. Chichibu's fruit led house character carries throughout, pear and honey balanced by a dry, oaky finish.

This bottling was distilled in 2008, from cask 185 and bottled in 2019. It is a run of 186 bottles, released for Japan. Single casks like this are the heart of the Chichibu name, each one a different reading of the same young, fast matured spirit. At 62.5% it drinks well neat, with water settling the oak.