Chichibu Malt Dream Cask 11 Years Old 2008 (63.2%)

Chichibu sits in a mountain basin in Saitama, northwest of Tokyo, where Ichiro Akuto fired the stills in 2008 under his Venture Whisky company. The make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses. The basin climate swings from humid summers near 35 degrees to winters below freezing, so the casks expand and contract hard and the spirit takes on wood faster than it would in Scotland.

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. On the palate the Chichibu signature shows through: bright orchard fruit, a clean citrus lift and a thread of wildflower honey.

This bottling was distilled in 2008, from cask 211 and bottled in 2019. It is a run of 177 bottles, released for Netherlands. Releases at this scale sell out quickly, which is part of why Chichibu has become one of the most traded distilleries in the world. Bottled at 63.2%, natural colour and not chill filtered.