Chichibu Ichiro’s Malt – Port Pipe 4 Years Old 2009

Chichibu is a small Saitama distillery started in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, founder of Venture Whisky and heir to the Hanyu distilling family. The make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses. Wide day to night temperature swings drive the wood interaction, which is why Chichibu reads older than its years suggest.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in a port pipe. At 4 years the spirit is in its extractive phase, pulling vanillin, oak lactones and colour quickly from the wood, which the basin's heat and cold drive harder than a cool maritime warehouse would. The port gives red fruit and a sweet fig note. 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 2009 and bottled in 2013. It is a run of 4200 bottles. It is the kind of single cask that built the distillery's reputation among collectors in barely more than a decade. At 54.5% it drinks well neat, with water settling the oak. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.