Chichibu Ichiro’s Malt – Single Cask 7 Years Old 2009

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 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 port pipe. 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, while the port gives red fruit and a sweet fig note. 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 2009, from cask 1921 and bottled in 2016. It is a run of 669 bottles, released for Japan. Each cask is bottled on its own terms, a snapshot of how a particular wood shaped the Saitama spirit. Bottled at 58.2%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.