Chichibu Ken’s Choice 2007 Cask #3932

In the Saitama mountains northwest of Tokyo, Chichibu has made malt whisky since 2008 under Ichiro Akuto and his Venture Whisky company. 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. Water comes off the Arakawa river system, filtered through the surrounding mountains to a clean mineral balance that lets the fruit and oak show.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. At 14 years the accelerated maturation has driven deep oak interaction, ellagitannins framing the fruit with a dry, spiced grip. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. The palate leans on tropical and orchard fruit, mango and apple, with a clean cereal note beneath.

This bottling was distilled in 2007, from cask 3932 and bottled in 2021. It is a run of 300 bottles, released for Japan. From a distillery still in its first generation, bottlings like this show how far Chichibu has come in a short time. Bottled at 59%, natural colour and not chill filtered. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.