Chichibu Single Cask #2923 8 Years Old 2013 (Ex-Bourbon)

Chichibu is a small Saitama distillery started in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, founder of Venture Whisky and heir to the Hanyu distilling family. 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. Water comes off the Arakawa river system, filtered through the surrounding mountains to a clean mineral balance that lets the fruit and oak show.

This is unpeated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon American oak. At 8 years, helped by an angel's share near double Scotland's, the make tastes older than it is, the esters rounding into stone fruit and the oak settling. 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 bottling was distilled in 2013, from cask 2923 and bottled in 2021. It is a run of 220 bottles, an event release. It is the kind of single cask that built the distillery's reputation among collectors in barely more than a decade. Bottled at 59.5%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.