Here are the first Japanese whiskies on the test bench! Let’s see is if the Chichibu bottlings are worth the hype!
Chichibu « Ichiro’s Malt & Grain – World blended whisky » 2018 (48%, OB)
Colour: Light gold with copper hues.
Nose: Solvants, flowers, honey, caramel, orange zest, cinnamon. It’s round and pretty flat.
Mouth: The alcohol integration is not good even with the reduction. Toffee, caramel, floral notes. The alcohol is too present in my opinion
Finish: Short. Mainly on the floral notes and the toffee with still alcohol notes.
This dram is pretty flat and full of alcohol presence. The floral notes are interesting but too shy compared to the rest.
Score: 82
Chichibu « On the way » 2019 (51.5%, OB, Bourbon cask, 11000 bottles)
Colour: Light gold.
Nose: It’s pleasant! Fruits, cereals, yellow peach, apricot, plums, wood smoke, vanilla and even some notes of « Tarte tatin ». Nice one!
Mouth: The alcohol integration is bad. Honey, caramel, « Tarte tatin », citruses, and some floral notes on the background.
Finish: Medium. Floral notes, toffee and noble wood.
The profile is pretty good but the bad alcohol integration completely covers any other flavours.
Score: 84
These two bottlings are pretty bad to be honest, I hope Chichibu released better ones because at the moment I can’t understand the hype nor the price of those bottles.
Tasting Bro's 
Uhm, okay, you don’t get the hype based on two of the earliest whiskies released by Chichibu, one of which is a young blend. Maybe try some of the fully aged single malts they’ve released and then get back to us??
J’aimeJ’aime
Maybe you missed the second part of the article where the last paragraph mention all of this specifically, so here is the direct link :
https://tastingbros.com/2021/01/31/the-chichibu-hype-part2/
J’aimeJ’aime