Chichibu 7 Years Old 2017 Cask #7492 (LMDW)

Chichibu sits in a mountain basin in Saitama, northwest of Tokyo, where Ichiro Akuto fired the stills in 2008 under 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 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. The palate leans on tropical and orchard fruit, mango and apple, with a clean cereal note beneath.

This bottling was distilled in 2017, from cask 7492 and bottled in 2025. It is a run of 171 bottles, released for France, bottled by La Maison du Whisky. It is the kind of single cask that built the distillery's reputation among collectors in barely more than a decade. At 64.3% it drinks well neat, with water settling the oak. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.