Chichibu 8 Years Old 2010 Cask #711 (Hideo Yamaoka)

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 basin climate swings from humid summers near 35 degrees to winters below freezing, so the casks expand and contract hard and the spirit takes on wood faster than it would in Scotland. The distillery ferments in washbacks built from Japanese mizunara oak, where native lactobacilli add fruit and a light incense note to the wash.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. At 8 years, helped by an angel's share near double Scotland's, the make tastes older than it is, the esters rounding into stone fruit and the oak settling. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. On the palate the Chichibu signature shows through: bright orchard fruit, a clean citrus lift and a thread of wildflower honey.

This bottling was distilled in 2010, from cask 711 and bottled in 2018. It is a run of 188 bottles, released for Japan, bottled by Hideo Yamaoka. 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 61.3%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.