Chichibu Intergalactic Series – Edition 4 8 Years Old 2012

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. The make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses. Production is small, around a third of a million litres a year, with floor malting done by hand on occasion and every stage run under one roof.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. Around 8 years in, the fruit esters and the wood have married, and the accelerated ageing gives a depth a Scottish whisky might reach much later. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. On the palate the Chichibu signature shows through: bright orchard fruit, a clean citrus lift and a thread of wildflower honey.

This bottling was distilled in 2012, from cask 2334 and bottled in 2020. It is a run of 215 bottles, an event release. Each cask is bottled on its own terms, a snapshot of how a particular wood shaped the Saitama spirit. At 63%, best read neat first, then opened with a little water.