Ichiro’s Double Distilleries + Peated Malt HY Ghost Series No. 10 (Hideo Yamaoka)

Hanyu distillery in Saitama prefecture closed in 2000, and its remaining casks passed to Ichiro Akuto, whose new Chichibu distillery opened in 2008 in the same prefecture. Together the two sites form the heart of Ichiro's Malt, and private bottler Hideo Yamaoka's HY Ghost Series draws on both, honouring the Hanyu legacy while placing it alongside Chichibu's continuing output. This is the tenth release in that series, bottled in 2018.

The blend combines Hanyu's mature ghost-distillery malt, Chichibu's vibrant young spirit and a peated component, all brought together in Ex-Bourbon casks and bottled at cask strength 61.3%. The Ex-Bourbon wood provides the expected vanilla and orchard fruit foundation, and the peated element adds smoke and complexity to what would otherwise be a fruit-forward profile. As a vatting of a closed distillery and an active one, it occupies a unique place in modern Japanese whisky.