Chichibu 7 Years Old 2016 Cask #14198 (TWE)

Cask number 14198 is a 2016 vintage Chichibu single malt drawn from an Ex-Bourbon barrel and bottled in 2024 at 59.5% by The Whisky Exchange for an event release. Chichibu distillery in Saitama prefecture, founded in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto of Venture Whisky, has built a substantial independent bottler network alongside its distillery single cask programme, and the TWE collaboration is one of the longer-standing partnerships.

Seven years in an Ex-Bourbon barrel gives the expected profile of vanilla, orchard fruit and warm wood spice, sitting within Chichibu's well-established house character. The flavour data for this cask is blank, placing the expression in the distillery's typical Ex-Bourbon register: clean, fruit-forward and honeyed, with a cereal backbone. At 59.5% the bottling is approachable by cask strength standards while still retaining the textural weight and directness that come from undiluted spirit.