Chichibu On The Way (58.5%)

Chichibu sits in a mountain basin in Saitama, northwest of Tokyo, where Ichiro Akuto fired the stills in 2008 under his Venture Whisky company. The basin climate swings from humid summers near 35 degrees to winters below freezing, so the casks expand and contract hard and the spirit takes on wood faster than it would in Scotland. 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 Japanese mizunara oak and finished in ex-bourbon American oak. With no age statement it rests entirely on the cask, where vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut, the fast Chichibu maturation giving more than the years would suggest. Mizunara lactones give sandalwood and a temple incense note, while 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 release was drawn from the distillery's own stock and bottled in 2013. It is a run of 9900 bottles. Single casks like this are the heart of the Chichibu name, each one a different reading of the same young, fast matured spirit. At 58.5%, best read neat first, then opened with a little water.