Chichibu Ichiro’s Malt 4 Years Old 2013

In the Saitama mountains northwest of Tokyo, Chichibu has made malt whisky since 2008 under Ichiro Akuto and his Venture Whisky company. 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. 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 an Oloroso sherry cask. 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 Oloroso gives dried fruit and a walnut nuttiness. The palate leans on tropical and orchard fruit, mango and apple, with a clean cereal note beneath.

This bottling was distilled in 2013, from cask 2588 and bottled in 2017. It is a run of 318 bottles, an event release. Each cask is bottled on its own terms, a snapshot of how a particular wood shaped the Saitama spirit. Bottled at 61.9%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.