Chichibu The US Edition 2025

The Chichibu distillery was founded in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, whose family had distilled at the closed Hanyu plant, and works on a small scale in the Saitama mountains. 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. 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 IPA beer cask and finished in a stout beer cask and ex-bourbon American oak. Without an age statement the cask does the talking, esters and vanillin building fruit and vanilla over a young but quickly matured spirit. The hopped cask gives citrus and a resinous bitterness, while the cask adds roasted malt and a cocoa note and 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 release was drawn from the distillery's own stock and bottled in 2025. It is released for USA. Releases at this scale sell out quickly, which is part of why Chichibu has become one of the most traded distilleries in the world. Bottled at 52.5%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.