Prices
Prices and stock come from each retailer's website. Check with the store before you buy.
More from this distillery: All Chichibu whiskies and prices
About
What it is
A 2023 release from Chichibu matured in red wine casks, bottled at 50.5%. Part of the distillery's programme of cask-type releases, which sit alongside the core bottlings and the country editions.
Where it comes from
Chichibu in Saitama, founded by Ichiro Akuto and distilling since 2008. Single malt, distilled and matured entirely on site, with no imported component. Akuto is one of the producers most associated with pushing for stricter meaning around the term Japanese whisky, and Chichibu's single malts are the bottles people cite in that argument.
How it's made
Chichibu is small and manual: a small mill, hand-stirred mash tun, mizunara washbacks and Forsyths pot stills. The valley's brutal winters and humid summers drive maturation hard, so Chichibu at five or six years reads more like ten somewhere cooler. Red wine casks bring tannin, colour and dark fruit, and they're a more forgiving match for younger whisky than white wine wood because there's more left in the staves to work with. Non-chill filtered, natural colour, as with everything Akuto bottles.
What to expect
The distillery's tropical fruit character, pineapple and mango, pushed into darker territory by the wine wood. Expect red berries, plum and a tannic grip alongside the usual honey and white pepper. At 50.5% it has plenty of weight and it opens up with time in the glass.
How it compares
Against the Australia Edition 2025, which uses Californian red wine casks among others, you can see Chichibu working the same idea in a different combination. Against Chichibu's bourbon-led core releases, the wine casks make this darker and more tannic. Against the mizunara and sherry cask releases, this is the fruitiest and most obviously wood-shaped of the set. These cask releases move quickly and rarely reappear, so they're bought when seen.
