Chichibu 2011 Unpeated (LMDW)

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. 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. 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 house style is clean and fruity from unpeated barley, which makes the peated bottlings a distinct strand rather than the norm.

This is peated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. Around 6 years in, the fruit esters and the wood have married, and the accelerated ageing gives a depth a Scottish whisky might reach much later. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. The malt was kilned over peat, so phenols give a firm medicinal smoke and ash over the fruit. Past the medicinal smoke the spirit stays sweet and fruity, a balance of ash and stone fruit.

This bottling was distilled in 2011, from cask 1292 and bottled in 2017. It is a run of 214 bottles, released for France, bottled by La Maison du Whisky. Each cask is bottled on its own terms, a snapshot of how a particular wood shaped the Saitama spirit. Bottled at 58.6%, natural colour and not chill filtered.