Chichibu Intergalactic Series – Edition 5 6 Years Old 2015

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. 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. The make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. At 6 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. The spirit character stays fruit forward, apple and pear over a soft, malty body and a gentle spice.

This bottling was distilled in 2015, from cask 4316 and bottled in 2021. It is a run of 210 bottles, an event release. Single casks like this are the heart of the Chichibu name, each one a different reading of the same young, fast matured spirit. At 62.3%, best read neat first, then opened with a little water.