“Dark, spicy notes in the scent. Quite intense in the taste with prune, Christmas creaches and vanilla. Packaged by a well-integrated alcohol and sweetness. An exciting and extremely well-made dram.”
95 points – Whiskey & Rome magazine
Ichiro’s Malt is a series of whiskies, who are not necessarily distilled at Chichibu, but selected and blended by Master Distiller Ichiro Akuto. Mizunara Wood Reserve is composed of distillates from both Chichibu and the closed cult distillery, Hanyu. The icing on the cake is the finish of the fade of Japanese oak, Mizunara, which is difficult to work with, hard to get and violently expensive. But it is worth the effort: Ichiro has stated that it is his favorite fad type, because of the unique taste, the Japanese oak gives the whiskey.
Color: Deep golden.
Fragrance: Charming scent of coconut, carnations, incense and peach.
Taste notes: Full, both sweet and a little “spicy”, with notes of warm baked goods, coconut again and stone fruit.
Serving suggestions: The whiskey should be enjoyed clean, possibly. With a few drops of cool water.
The visionary Ichiro Akuto founded the Japanese whiskey distillery Chichibu in 2008, just 4 years after his family’s famous distillery, Hanyu, was dismantled. It demanded some leg work to convince the bank and investors that there was a future in Chichibu Distillery, because at that time the interest in Japanese whiskey was in free fall for 25 years. Fortunately for whiskey lovers worldwide. Before Chichibu opened, Ichiro was skilled in distilleries like Benromach, Kilchoman, Benriach and Karuizawa, and the quality was right from the start to top. Today he is considered the most influential (living) person in Japanese whiskey.
The malt comes mainly from England (and a little from Germany), but you have also begun to use local barley, Japanese varieties even, grown as little as 5 minutes from the distillery. Since local barley is about 5 times more expensive than the malt from England, it is only about 15% of annual production. Every summer before the distiller is shut down for maintenance, distilling a bit strongly smoked (50+ ppm) malt. Chichibu is also particularly known for experimenting with different fad types, and one has, among other things, spent tequilafade, calvadosfade, cognacy, beer dishes and fade built by the special, Japanese oak tree, Mizunara.
One of Ichiro Acuto’s character trait is that he always thinks about the next generation – a great feature to have like whiskeys. Outside the distillery, he has planted Japanese oak trees, Mizunara, ready to be made for fade in about 200 years.
