Chichibu 10th Anniversary Whisky Live Taipei 7 Years Old 2012

Founded in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, Chichibu has risen fast from a small mountain distillery to one of the most sought names in Japanese whisky. 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. The make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. By 7 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. 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 2012, from cask 1781 and bottled in 2019. It is a run of 219 bottles, released for Taiwan. From a distillery still in its first generation, bottlings like this show how far Chichibu has come in a short time. Bottled at 62.4%, natural colour and not chill filtered.