Chichibu Ichiro's Malt and Grain Limited Edition

Chichibu Ichiro's Malt and Grain Limited Edition is a world blended whisky bottled at 48% ABV behind a blue label.

Ichiro Akuto built the Chichibu distillery in Saitama in 2008, and he can also reach into family stocks far older than that — his grandfather's Hanyu distillery, closed and sold at the turn of the century. This is the senior sibling to the standard Malt and Grain, drawing on the same spread of Scotch, Canadian rye, American bourbon, Irish whiskey and Chichibu's own single malt, but with a higher proportion of malt and a core of very old Akuto stock, some of it up to forty years. Every component is aged at least ten years before vatting, and the marriage happens in Mizunara oak.

Pour it neat in a tulip glass at room temperature, with water on the side. The grain sits back while apple pie and spice, lemon curd and oats give way to toffee, malt and a whisper of salty smoke. It will make a very fine Old Fashioned if you can bear to.