Chichibu Paris Edition 2025 Ichiro’s Malt Les Champs Elysees (LMDW)

Chichibu sits in a mountain basin in Saitama, northwest of Tokyo, where Ichiro Akuto fired the stills in 2008 under his Venture Whisky company. Water comes off the Arakawa river system, filtered through the surrounding mountains to a clean mineral balance that lets the fruit and oak show. 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.

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. The spirit character stays fruit forward, apple and pear over a soft, malty body and a gentle spice.

This release was drawn from the distillery's own stock and bottled in 2025. It is a run of 2484 bottles, an event release, 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 50.5%, natural colour and not chill filtered.