Chichibu 4 Years Old 2010 Cask #651 (LMDW)

Ichiro Akuto built Chichibu in 2008 in a landlocked basin in Saitama, carrying forward a distilling line that ran back through the lost Hanyu distillery. 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. Water comes off the Arakawa river system, filtered through the surrounding mountains to a clean mineral balance that lets the fruit and oak show.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. Only 4 years old, it leans on early wood extraction, vanillin and oak lactones to the fore, though Chichibu's fast maturation gives it more weight than the age implies. 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 2010, from cask 651 and bottled in 2014. It is released for France, bottled by La Maison du Whisky. From a distillery still in its first generation, bottlings like this show how far Chichibu has come in a short time. Bottled at 61.6%, natural colour and not chill filtered.