Chichibu Single Cask #2279 7 Years Old 2012 (Bordeaux)

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. The basin climate swings from humid summers near 35 degrees to winters below freezing, so the casks expand and contract hard and the spirit takes on wood faster than it would in Scotland.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in a bordeaux wine cask. 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. The wine gives blackcurrant and a firm tannin. The spirit character stays fruit forward, apple and pear over a soft, malty body and a gentle spice.

This bottling was distilled in 2012, from cask 2279 and bottled in 2019. It is a run of 100 bottles, an event release. Single casks like this are the heart of the Chichibu name, each one a different reading of the same young, fast matured spirit. Bottled at 60.4%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.