Chichibu Ichiro's The Peated 10th Anniversary

Chichibu Ichiro's The Peated 10th Anniversary is a limited peated single malt marking ten years of the Saitama distillery.

Ichiro Akuto fired up the stills at Chichibu in 2008, the first new malt distillery built in Japan in decades, and this bottling was released to mark the tenth year. Peated spirit accounts for only a small share of production and is made in a short annual window, so peated releases under the Ichiro's Malt label are always limited. Akuto's reputation rests on small-batch bottlings, Mizunara oak and an unusually hands-on operation, with malting, fermentation, distillation and cask work all happening on one modest site.

Serve neat in a tulip glass and add water sparingly. Peated Chichibu leans earthy and faintly maritime, a long way from the tarry Islay register. An after-dinner dram to sit with over an hour, not a base for mixing.