Every year since 2018, the Chichibu distillery, founded by Ichiro Akuto in 2008, has created a blend dedicated to the City of Lights: Chichibu Paris Edition.
Exploring the geography and urban identity of Paris and Tokyo, the 2025 vintage invites visitors to visit the iconic neighborhoods of these two capitals: Montmartre and Asakusa; Le Marais and Harajuku; Les Champs-Élysées and Ginza. Six labels have been designed to illustrate this new edition, in a pop and colorful graphic style, a tribute to Japanese kawaii culture. Inspired by postage stamps with their jagged edges, they evoke travel and the connection between the two urban cultures. Chichibu Paris Edition 2025 is the result of a complex blend: four new French oak barrels, one Spanish oak barrel that once held sherry, three French oak barrels that once held Bordeaux red wine, one American oak hogshead, six bourbon barrels, and two bourbon barrels that once held a heavily peated whisky.
The whiskies in this vintage range in age from five to fourteen years. Enriched by this rather heterogeneous combination of barrels, its aromatic and flavor palette is based on a malty framework that allows it to stay the course through thick and thin. Particularly balanced, it enthusiastically explores earthy, fruity, spicy, gourmet, and infused regions that rival each other in intensity.
About Chichibu
Chichibu distillery in Saitama, Japan was opened in 2008, and was the country’s first new distillery since Suntory opened Hakushu back in 1973. Chichibu was the brainchild of Ichiro Akuto, grandson of the founder of the legendary Hanyu distillery. The Ichiro’s Malt brand appeared in 2005 and rose to fame through the bottling of the last casks from Hanyu, particularly the sought after ‘Card’ series. The first Chichibu releases appeared under it in 2011.
Chichibu is one of Japan’s smallest whisky distilleries, famous for their craft-scale production. With a small, young team, innovative methods and a following from around the world, Chichibu is seen by many as the future of Japanese whisky.
Chichibu was founded by the living legend Ichiro Akuto, a name made familiar to many by his award-winning Ichiro’s Malt Cards. While Chichibu is quite a young distillery, founded in 2004 and beginning production in 2008, Ichiro’s history with the spirit goes back much further. His family have been involved in Sake production since the 17th century, and his grandfather started whisky production at the Hanyu distillery in the 20th century. During the whisky loch and financial downturns of the 1980s and ‘90s, Hanyu was eventually forced to close, becoming one of Japan’s famous lost distilleries. Their casks, however, were still resting, and Akuto took ownership of these in 2004. These became the base for Ichiro’s Malt Cards, a highly collectable series of 58 bottles representing cards in a deck.
50.5% ABV
70cl
