Chichibu Paris Edition 2024

Chichibu is a small Saitama distillery started in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, founder of Venture Whisky and heir to the Hanyu distilling family. The make is double distilled in copper pot stills built by Forsyths, from mostly unpeated barley, and matured on site in dunnage warehouses. Wide day to night temperature swings drive the wood interaction, which is why Chichibu reads older than its years suggest.

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. Underneath the wood, the make keeps its clean, fruity core, green apple and stone fruit with a light floral edge.

This release was drawn from the distillery's own stock and bottled in 2024. It is a run of 2484 bottles, an event release. Each cask is bottled on its own terms, a snapshot of how a particular wood shaped the Saitama spirit. Bottled at 50.5%, natural colour and not chill filtered. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky.