Chichibu Number One Drinks Company 6 Years Old 2009

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 distillery ferments in washbacks built from Japanese mizunara oak, where native lactobacilli add fruit and a light incense note to the wash. 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.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. By 6 years the spirit and oak have started to integrate, rougher notes softening as esters build into orchard and tropical fruit. 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 2009, from cask 635 and bottled in 2015. It is a run of 206 bottles, released for Japan. From a distillery still in its first generation, bottlings like this show how far Chichibu has come in a short time. Bottled at 62.1%, natural colour and not chill filtered. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.