Chichibu Paris Edition 2021 Ichiro’s Malt (LMDW)

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. 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. 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.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. Carrying no age statement, it leans on wood extraction, vanillin and oak lactones to the fore, with the basin climate pushing the spirit into the oak quickly. 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 2021. It is a run of 1847 bottles, released for France, bottled by La Maison du Whisky. Releases at this scale sell out quickly, which is part of why Chichibu has become one of the most traded distilleries in the world. At 53.5% it drinks well neat, with water settling the oak.