Chichibu 7 Years Old 2013 Cask #2933 (LMDW)

The Chichibu distillery was founded in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, whose family had distilled at the closed Hanyu plant, and works on a small scale in the Saitama mountains. The make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses. 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.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. By 7 years the spirit and oak have started to integrate, rougher notes softening as esters build into orchard and tropical fruit. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. The spirit character stays fruit forward, apple and pear over a soft, malty body and a gentle spice.

This bottling was distilled in 2013, from cask 2933 and bottled in 2020. It is a run of 212 bottles, 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 50.9%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.