Chichibu Shibazakura Flower Festival 7 Years Old 2018

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. 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. Around 7 years in, the fruit esters and the wood have married, and the accelerated ageing gives a depth a Scottish whisky might reach much later. 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 bottling was distilled in 2018, from cask 16109 and bottled in 2025. It is a run of 256 bottles, released for France. Single casks like this are the heart of the Chichibu name, each one a different reading of the same young, fast matured spirit. At 61%, best read neat first, then opened with a little water.