Chichibu Ichiro's Malt Mizunara Wood Reserve Pure Malt Whisky

Chichibu Ichiro's Malt Mizunara Wood Reserve is a pure malt raised start to finish in Japanese oak, bottled at 46% ABV.

Mizunara is rare, expensive and awkward to work with — it leaks, it warps, it takes years to season — and Ichiro Akuto accepts all of it for the aromatics, which Dave Broom characterises as sandalwood, cedar and aloeswood with coconut and a leafy edge. Chichibu's washbacks are built from the same timber, and this bottling has spent its whole life in it: fermentation, maturation and vatting. A partial solera keeps the older material refreshed with younger single malt, which builds complexity while holding the release reasonably consistent from batch to batch. Non-chill filtered and uncoloured.

Pour it neat into a copita and give it a few minutes; the Mizunara character asks for air more than water. Sandalwood and incense sit over orchard fruit and soft spice. Leave this one out of cocktails — the oak signature vanishes under anything else.