Chichibu Single Cask #3358 7 Years Old 2014 (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. 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 ex-bourbon American oak. By 7 years the spirit and oak have started to integrate, rougher notes softening as esters build into orchard and tropical fruit. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. The palate leans on tropical and orchard fruit, mango and apple, with a clean cereal note beneath.

This bottling was distilled in 2014, from cask 3358 and bottled in 2021. It is a run of 198 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 64.3%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.