Chichibu Paris Edition 2022 Ichiro’s Malt (LMDW)

Chichibu is a small Saitama distillery started in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, founder of Venture Whisky and heir to the Hanyu distilling family. Water comes off the Arakawa river system, filtered through the surrounding mountains to a clean mineral balance that lets the fruit and oak show. 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. 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. Chichibu's fruit led house character carries throughout, pear and honey balanced by a dry, oaky finish.

This release was drawn from the distillery's own stock and bottled in 2022. It is a run of 1900 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. Bottled at 51.5%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.