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

Ichiro's Double Distilleries is a blended malt vatting Chichibu with the closed Hanyu distillery, both tied to Ichiro Akuto: Hanyu was his family's distillery, shut in 2000, its surviving casks the basis of the famous Card Series before Chichibu opened in 2008. Both sites sit in Saitama.

The vatting brings Hanyu's older, deeper malt together with younger Chichibu spirit. Carrying no age statement, it rests on the wood and Chichibu's quick, climate driven maturation. Ex-bourbon vanillin reads as vanilla, with orchard and dried fruit from the Hanyu component and a fresher, fruit led lift from the Chichibu. On the palate it runs from the deeper Hanyu fruit into Chichibu's brighter orchard and citrus. The peated malt adds phenols, a light medicinal smoke over the fruit.

Bottled at 61.3% in a run of 129 for Japan. A vatting of two distilleries from one family's distilling line, natural presentation. Surviving casks from the closed Hanyu distillery make vattings like this increasingly rare. It remains one of the most collected names in modern Japanese whisky. Demand for the distillery's bottlings has long outpaced its small output.