Chichibu 9 Years Old 2014 Cask #3094 (LMDW)

In the Saitama mountains northwest of Tokyo, Chichibu has made malt whisky since 2008 under Ichiro Akuto and his Venture Whisky company. 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 ex-bourbon American oak. By 9 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 palate leans on tropical and orchard fruit, mango and apple, with a clean cereal note beneath.

This bottling was distilled in 2014, from cask 3094 and bottled in 2023. It is a run of 177 bottles, released for France, bottled by La Maison du Whisky. From a distillery still in its first generation, bottlings like this show how far Chichibu has come in a short time. Bottled at 61.9%, natural colour and not chill filtered. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.