Chichibu Intergalactic Series – Edition 6 6 Years Old 2015

In the Saitama mountains northwest of Tokyo, Chichibu has made malt whisky since 2008 under Ichiro Akuto and his Venture Whisky company. Wide day to night temperature swings drive the wood interaction, which is why Chichibu reads older than its years suggest. 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.

This is unpeated 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 spirit character stays fruit forward, apple and pear over a soft, malty body and a gentle spice.

This bottling was distilled in 2015, from cask 5486 and bottled in 2021. It is a run of 203 bottles, an event release. It is the kind of single cask that built the distillery's reputation among collectors in barely more than a decade. At 63.6%, best read neat first, then opened with a little water. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.