Chichibu Single Cask 7 Years Old 2011

In the Saitama mountains northwest of Tokyo, Chichibu has made malt whisky since 2008 under Ichiro Akuto and 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 ex-bourbon American oak. At 7 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 palate leans on tropical and orchard fruit, mango and apple, with a clean cereal note beneath.

This bottling was distilled in 2011, from cask 5036 and bottled in 2018. It is a run of 185 bottles, released for Sweden, Norway. From a distillery still in its first generation, bottlings like this show how far Chichibu has come in a short time. Bottled at 59.1%, it rewards a drop of water to open the fruit.