Chichibu Paris Edition 2023 Ichiro’s Malt (LMDW)

Founded in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, Chichibu has risen fast from a small mountain distillery to one of the most sought names in Japanese whisky. 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. 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. Without an age statement the cask does the talking, esters and vanillin building fruit and vanilla over a young but quickly matured spirit. 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 2023. It is a run of 2100 bottles, released for France, bottled by La Maison du Whisky. Each cask is bottled on its own terms, a snapshot of how a particular wood shaped the Saitama spirit. At 49.5% it drinks well neat, with water settling the oak.