Chichibu 7 Years Old 2012 Cask #5077 (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 make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses. 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 and finished in a pinot noir wine cask. Around 7 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, while the wine gives light red cherry and berry. Chichibu's fruit led house character carries throughout, pear and honey balanced by a dry, oaky finish.

This bottling was distilled in 2012, from cask 5077 and bottled in 2019. It is a run of 205 bottles, released for France, bottled by La Maison du Whisky. 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 62.2%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.