Ichiro Chichibu the Peated

When I'd first walked into Helvetica, the local whisky bar, for our March whisky club meeting, one of the first things I noticed on the menu was a new whisky, a Japanese whisky, that made me grin and say to myself, I need to try that tonight.

That whisky was Chichibu the Peated. Sitting at 50.5% abv and running $25 a dram I knew it would be the whisky I ended the night on.

And god it was definitely the whisky I needed to end the night on as towards the end of the last dram we had a very intoxicated lady with a whisky cocktail sat down next to us, spilling a good portion of her drink on me, and insisting that we all take a taste of her whisky cocktail.

How awesome is her cocktail, isn't the whisky great, how flavorful, why don't we try some whisky cocktails, it'd be great as we're a whisky club.

The fact that we're drinking all of our whiskies straight and are enjoying the flavors seems to have passed her by, not too surprising considering how drunk she is.

Christ.

Oh well it's getting a little late, almost 10pm hahaha and it's time for that last dram.

So I order the Chichibu the Peated and I get ready to grin.

A lovely nose, soft peat, cinnamon, slightly phenolic, honey, toffee, soft smoke, chocolate, burnt pork, however the nose isn't heavily peated like you might expect. It's quite complex and very interesting and has the members intrigued.

Time for a taste!

Again soft smoke and peat, diesel and ash fumes (it's good I swear) lemons, peppers, again the pork comes out on the palate.

Yummy and definitely a different take compared to the rest of the evening's whiskies.

A long lingering finish that follows the palate closely however there is an addition of some mint in there and I'm left feeling like a happy man.

A very good whisky, very enjoyable, quite complex, but definitely not for those who don't enjoy some of the more Islayish characteristics of ash, diesel, petrol kind of flavors.

Sad time now though folks.

I've never seen this bottle for sell in Australia. Never. And I honestly have no accurate idea on how much it would run. I can guess and I'd honestly guess it to start at around $120 and move up to maybe $200 AUS, but again this is just a guess.

At $130ish or so I'd be content to pick up a bottle, might be kind of fun to see how it evolves, but at $200ish save your money in my opinion.

However if you ever see it for sell by the dram, grab one if you can!