Chichibu 2012 – Peated (LMDW)

In the Saitama mountains northwest of Tokyo, Chichibu has made malt whisky since 2008 under Ichiro Akuto and his Venture Whisky company. Chichibu loses roughly three to five per cent of each cask a year to evaporation, near double the Scottish rate, so a young whisky here carries the depth of a much older one. The distillery ferments in washbacks built from Japanese mizunara oak, where native lactobacilli add fruit and a light incense note to the wash. Most Chichibu is unpeated, so a peated release is a deliberate exception, the malt kilned over peat before it ever reaches the still.

This is peated 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. The malt was kilned over peat, so phenols give a firm medicinal smoke and ash over the fruit. Beneath the smoke the Chichibu fruit holds on, apple and honey rising against the ash on the finish.

This bottling was distilled in 2012, from cask 2070 and bottled in 2018. It is a run of 258 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 62.9%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.