Ichiro’s Malt Chichibu The US Edition 2019 Single Malt Whiskey

The Ichiro’s Malt Chichibu. One of Japan’s smallest and most sought-after distillers. Ichiro Akuto’s Chichibu distillery is also the youngest by far, having be found in 2008. In fact, it is the first new distillery build in the country since the 1970s. Ichiro is the third generation of his family to be involve in brewing. But he runs his distillery with a slight experimental touch, all while paying deep homage to the traditions of Scotland. Further, This one of three highly-limit single malt releases that Ichiro made for three specific markets in 2018 – the U.S., London, and Paris.

It all starts some three centuries when the first of Ichiro Akuto’s forefathers begins making alcoholic beverages in Saitama Prefecture. His grandfather begins making whisky in the mid-1940’s with Hanyu Distillery. Whose focus on malt whiskies takes off with the Japanese economic boom of the 1980s. However, when the bubble burst in the 1990s. So too did the first Japanese Whisky boom, leading to Hanyu—like several other distillers—shuttering their doors. Ichiro saves his grandfather’s old inventory and subsequently releases the Playing Card series. This collection, which debuts to a slow start in the early 2000s, however, is now consider unicorn whisky, the stuff of legend. With the success of the playing cards, Ichiro saw that the Japanese whisky revival is imminent and in 2008 he build his current distillery in Chichubu. Chichubu distillery is where Ichiro, a 21st-century whisky-maker, embraces the heritage and heart of the Scots, balance by the precision of the Japanese, and the shokunin philosophy. The Ichiro’s Malt Chichibu