Big surprise in the Japanese whisky world, Chichibu and Mars Whisky have exchanged casks and unveil today their blended malts Ichiro's Malt Double Distilleries 2021 Chichibu X Komagatake, and Mars Whisky Malt Duo Komagatake X Chichibu 2021 !
After the announcement last March of the first barrel exchange between the two Japanese distilleries Nagahama and Saburomaru, it is now the turn of two major players in the industry to collaborate with the exchange of several whisky barrels.
One might think that this collaboration follows the one between the two young distilleries, but in fact we learn that Hombo Shuzo and Venture Whisky started their joint bottling project in 2015. So the very first exchange took place in the utmost secrecy 6 years ago and the exchanged casks were stored for aging in their respective cellars.
The result of this collaboration is two 100% Japanese blended malts jointly presented by Kasuto Hombo and Ichiro Akuto, with Hombo Shuzo's Mars Whisky Malt Duo Komagatake X Chichibu 2021, and Venture Whisky's Ichiro's Malt Double Distilleries 2021 Chichibu X Komagatake.
Mars Whisky Malt Duo Komagatake X Chichibu 2021
This blended malt is a blend of Komagatake single malt casks with Sherry and American white oak casks filled with Chichibu single malt sent in 2015 to the Shinshu distillery for aging. This small batch was bottled at 54% volume and represents a total of 10918 bottles.
Ichiro's Malt Double Distilleries 2021 Chichibu X Komagatake
A nod to its iconic Double Distilleries blended malt, this whisky is a blend of Komagatake single malt casks selected at the Shinshu distillery and transferred to Chichibu for aging. Bottled at 53% of the volume, this small batch represents a total of 10200 bottles.
These two blended malts will be available in Japan at the end of April 2021 and some bottles will probably be allocated to the international market, but as usual it will be very difficult to get hold of them as the demand will be so important.
Source : Hombo Shuzo
