Chichibu Ichiro’s Malt

Ichiro Akuto built Chichibu in 2008 in a landlocked basin in Saitama, carrying forward a distilling line that ran back through the lost Hanyu distillery. Wide day to night temperature swings drive the wood interaction, which is why Chichibu reads older than its years suggest. 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. Without an age statement the cask does the talking, esters and vanillin building fruit and vanilla over a young but quickly matured spirit. 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 from cask 7404 and bottled in 2023. It is a run of 201 bottles, released for Australia. It is the kind of single cask that built the distillery's reputation among collectors in barely more than a decade. At 65% it drinks well neat, with water settling the oak. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.