Chichibu Whisky Live Tokyo 4 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. 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. 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 4 years the wood is still giving up its first sugars and spice, vanillin reading as vanilla, with the sharp seasonal swings speeding the exchange. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. The body is medium and the fruit clear, baked apple and citrus peel running into a warm, lightly spiced finish.

This bottling was distilled in 2009, from cask 422 and bottled in 2013. It is a run of 233 bottles, released for Japan. 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 61.8%, natural colour and not chill filtered.