Chichibu 6 Years Old 2012 Cask #1788 (Speciality Drinks Ltd)

Founded in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, Chichibu has risen fast from a small mountain distillery to one of the most sought names in Japanese whisky. 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. 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. Around 6 years in, the fruit esters and the wood have married, and the accelerated ageing gives a depth a Scottish whisky might reach much later. 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 2012, from cask 1788 and bottled in 2018. It is a run of 190 bottles, an event release, bottled by Speciality Drinks Ltd. It is the kind of single cask that built the distillery's reputation among collectors in barely more than a decade. Bottled at 62.3%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.