Ichiros Malt Minuzara Wood Reserve

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.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.