Chichibu – Ichiro's Malt & Grain (70cl, 46.5%)

This is a blended whisky created by Ichiro Akuto, founder of the Chichibu distillery. He combined whiskies from Ireland, Scotland, the USA, Canada and Japan with Chichibu single malt, and bottled the result at 46.5%. The nose has peach, dried apricot, sweet caramel, vanilla cream, citrus peel, banana and sticky malt. Toffee comes first on the palate, with barley malt, gingerbread, tropical fruit, honeyed pipe tobacco, black pepper, roasted chestnuts and fresh-cut hay. The finish is medium in length, with vanilla and dried tropical fruit.