Chichibu 6 Year Old - Cadenheads World Whiskies - 2020 Release - Single Cask

Chichibu distillery was founded in 2007 by Ichiro Akuto, funded in part by the proceeds from the casks he rescued from his grandfather’s Hanyu distillery, which was closed in 2000. Distillation began at Chichibu in 2008 and in 2011 the new distillery’s warehouses became the repository for the last casks of Karuizawa after they were bought by Number One Drinks.

Chichibu’s whisky is much in demand itself, but the distillery is one of the smallest in Japan with tiny washbacks and stills giving a production capacity of less than 80,000 litres per annum. A second Chichibu distillery was built in 2018 and commenced distillation the following year. Chichibu #2 ‘s stills are much larger than those at Chichibu #1, giving it a production capacity of over 250,000 litres per year.

In 1842 George Duncan established a wine merchant and distillery agency business in Aberdeen. Duncan was joined in the early 1850s by his brother-in-law William Cadenhead, who took over the business after Duncan’s death in 1858, changing the company’s name to Wm. Cadenhead. When Cadenhead died in 1904 the company passed to his nephew Robert Duthie, who developed the spirits side of the business.

Duthie died suddenly in 1931, and employee Ann Oliver was put in charge of Cadenhead’s. Sadly, Oliver’s tenure ended in financial difficulty and on her retirement in 1972 the business was forced to sell its entire inventory. Cadenhead’s was acquired soon afterwards by J & A Mitchell, proprietors of Springbank distillery, who relocated the business to Campbeltown. Cadenhead’s has flourished under Mitchell’s stewardship, releasing many legendary single malt bottlings in the 1980s and 1990s and now has outlets in Edinburgh and London as well as Campbeltown.