Chichibu Taiwan Edition 2021

Chichibu is a small Saitama distillery started in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, founder of Venture Whisky and heir to the Hanyu distilling family. Water comes off the Arakawa river system, filtered through the surrounding mountains to a clean mineral balance that lets the fruit and oak show. The make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. Carrying no age statement, it leans on wood extraction, vanillin and oak lactones to the fore, with the basin climate pushing the spirit into the oak quickly. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. The body is medium and the fruit clear, baked apple and citrus peel running into a warm, lightly spiced finish.

This release was drawn from the distillery's own stock and bottled in 2021. It is a run of 750 bottles, released for Taiwan. Single casks like this are the heart of the Chichibu name, each one a different reading of the same young, fast matured spirit. Bottled at 48.5%, natural colour and not chill filtered.