Chichibu Travel Exclusive

The Chichibu distillery was founded in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto, whose family had distilled at the closed Hanyu plant, and works on a small scale in the Saitama mountains. 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. With no age statement it rests entirely on the cask, where vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut, the fast Chichibu maturation giving more than the years would suggest. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut. Underneath the wood, the make keeps its clean, fruity core, green apple and stone fruit with a light floral edge.

This release was drawn from the distillery's own stock and bottled in 2019. It is a run of 642 bottles, released for Japan. Releases at this scale sell out quickly, which is part of why Chichibu has become one of the most traded distilleries in the world. At 57.5% it drinks well neat, with water settling the oak.