Chichibu Ichiro’s Malt – The Peated 3 Years Old 2009

Chichibu Ichiro's Malt The Peated 3 Years Old 2009 is a single malt distilled from peated barley in 2009, just one year into the Chichibu distillery's history in Saitama, and bottled in 2012 at 50.5% cask strength for the global market. As one of the earliest peated releases from Venture Whisky's Chichibu programme, it documents how the distillery approached smoke in its foundational years, matured for three years in Ex-Bourbon casks before release.

Three years in American oak at cask strength gives the peat room to express itself without much wood interference, framing the smoke in the lighter, fruit-edged way that tends to characterise Chichibu's peated releases rather than the heavier peat found at Islay-inspired distilleries. Ex-Bourbon maturation adds a light vanilla thread beneath the smoke, and at 50.5% the expression is moderate in strength, suggesting a balanced and active barrel from the distillery's second year of production.