Chichibu Ichiro’s Malt 10 Years Old 2008

In the Saitama mountains northwest of Tokyo, Chichibu has made malt whisky since 2008 under Ichiro Akuto and his Venture Whisky company. 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. Wide day to night temperature swings drive the wood interaction, which is why Chichibu reads older than its years suggest.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. At 10 years the accelerated maturation has driven deep oak interaction, ellagitannins framing the fruit with a dry, spiced grip. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. Underneath the wood, the make keeps its clean, fruity core, green apple and stone fruit with a light floral edge.

This bottling was distilled in 2008 and bottled in 2019. It is a run of 164 bottles, an event release. From a distillery still in its first generation, bottlings like this show how far Chichibu has come in a short time. Bottled at 59.9%, natural colour and not chill filtered. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.