Chichibu 7 Years Old 2013 Cask #2661 (TWE)

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. Production is small, around a third of a million litres a year, with floor malting done by hand on occasion and every stage run under one roof.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. At 7 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. The body is medium and the fruit clear, baked apple and citrus peel running into a warm, lightly spiced finish.

This bottling was distilled in 2013, from cask 2661 and bottled in 2020. It is a run of 99 bottles, an event release, bottled by The Whisky Exchange. From a distillery still in its first generation, bottlings like this show how far Chichibu has come in a short time. Bottled at 62.1%, natural colour and not chill filtered.