An exciting new Ghost Series bottling is afoot - an Apple Saison Beer Cask Finished Chichibu Japanese Single Malt!

The Ghost Series is an ongoing series of Japanese whisky bottlings released by acclaimed Japanese whisky writer, Stefan van Eycken, whose many accolades includes having been the editor of Japanese whisky focused site Nonjatta, as well as having authored the book, Whisky Rising (with a new updated version out now on Amazon!).

The series notably features not only rare and unique (often one of a kind) Japanese whiskies, but also each carries a print from Japan's last ukiyo-e woodblock print master, Yoshitoshi, in specific his final collection "Thirty-Six New Forms Of Ghosts".

When news dropped of Ghost Series bottling #21 that will be part of an annual Chichibu Stamp Rally, we knew we had to reach out to Stefan for the inside scoop on what's gone on behind the label.

| Read: First Impressions From An Early Arriver To Japan's Whisky New Era: Stefan van Eycken Takes Us Ghostbusting

For Ghost #21, you have teamed up with Hideo Yamaoka again – but this time for a Stamp Rally bottling. 

Yes, Hideo reached out to me with the idea of making the third edition of the Stamp Rally bottling part of the Ghost Series. As a fan of the entire concept of the stamp rally, I was really thrilled about this. And so that’s how Ghost #21 became part of the Stamp Rally series… a meeting of series, in a way, even though, of course, Hideo and I have worked together on many bottlings in the past.

For those not familiar with the Stamp Rally, what is the idea behind it?

It’s meant to encourage people to visit bars that they might already be familiar with, but also bars that they may never have been to. Bars – and specialist whisky bars, in particular – are the lifeblood of the Japanese whisky scene, and the first two rallies took place during the pandemic when the encouragement was much needed.

The participating bars are in Chichibu, Saitama and Tokyo, so it’s also a chance for people to make a little excursion. And of course, all the bars have the Chichibu Stamp Rally bottling, so you can try it there. After visiting a certain number of bars, you can mail in your stamp card and then you get entered into a raffle and have the chance to win a bottle. You’ll still have to pay for the bottle, obviously, but it’s a rare chance to show how much you really want a bottle. It’s very easy to enter online ballots, but in this case, you have to leave the comfort of your home, and really do your “homework”… but you’ll have so much fun in the process of doing so.

The stamp rally card.

It does make it hard for whisky enthusiasts living abroad, though, doesn’t it? 

That’s true, but after being closed for tourism for so many years because of COVID-19, the doors to Japan are wide open now, and with the exchange rate being massively in favor of the tourists, it’s the perfect excuse to (re-)visit the country.

Let’s move on to the actual whisky itself. What was the selection process like?

Hideo and I visited Chichibu distillery on May 19^th for the selection. He had already given the staff there a heads-up to prepare a nice variety of samples, and as the Ghost Series tends to highlight the quirky side of Japanese whisky, to include some “unusual” samples, too.

We had a selection of 6 samples, between 6 and 9 years of age. One of them was peated, and even though it was excellent, we felt we didn’t want to do a peated release. That left us with 5. Sometimes selecting a cask can be excruciating – when the samples are all very similar, and the quality is very similar, and so on – but in this case, pretty much straight off the bat, we knew which one was our collective favourite. Of course, we did our due diligence by taking our time and going back to all the different samples many times over, but in the end, we decided to go for the one that was our favourite at the outset.

Whisky Mew's Hideo Yamaoka (left) and Stefan van Eycken (right) at the Chichibu Distillery selecting what would be Ghost #21.

So what were the specs on the one you ended up picking? 

To put it simply, it was a Chichibu malt whisky finished in an ex-beer cask. But there is so much more to the story… I hope you’re sitting down, because it gets a bit complex. The whisky that we ended up bottling was distilled in May 2014 and started its life maturing in ex-bourbon wood. After almost 5 years (in April 2019, to be precise), it was moved to an ex-beer cask (cask #12374) and matured for a little over 4 years – and at that stage, we picked it and then it was bottled.

Now, cask #12374 had an interesting history of its own: it started as a bourbon barrel; was then shipped to Chichibu distillery, where it was used to age Chichibu whisky; after the whisky had been dumped and used (we don’t know for what purpose or for what specific bottling), the cask was “lent out” to the local craft beer brewery Chichibu Beer. They filled it with a so-called “Strong W Ringo Saison”. A saison is usually low abv, but this came in at 11%abv, hence “strong”. The “W”, as people familiar with Japanese culture will know, is shorthand for “double” and “ringo” is the Japanese for apple. So, this was a saison that was made with roughly double the amount of apple juice that would normally be used, giving it a refreshing acidity and intensely fruity aroma. (The apple juice used, incidentally, was from Nagano prefecture.)

So, to get back to our narrative, Chichibu Beer filled this saison into the cask they had borrowed from Chichibu Distillery. The brewery then bottled it in February 2019 and it was sold at that time to adventurous beer lovers. The cask, meanwhile, made its way back home to Chichibu Distillery and was then filled with the aforementioned whisky that had already been matured in ex-bourbon wood for 5 years.

The label from the Apple Saison used to season the casks used to finish the Chichibu whisky.

Initially, when I saw the specs, I was quite concerned about the long finishing period. In fact, I think it’s better to speak of a “secondary maturation” rather than a “finish”. I was worried that 4 long years in an ex-beer cask might be too much... But the moment we nosed and tasted it, those worries were gone in an instant and we felt there was quite a lot of character from the saison, but without in any way obliterating the character of the Chichibu whisky.

The whisky had acquired a sort of heightened fruity profile, but in a very integrated way. I had been a fan of Chichibu expressions finished / matured in beer casks for a long time, but this was something entirely new, so Hideo and I felt – aside from the quality of the sample, which was our primary focus – that it was unique, something that had never been released before by Chichibu distillery and it also tied in with the idea of supporting the local community (i.e. the fact that it was matured in a cask used by the local craft brewery).

Was there a sample that was a close second? 

It’s funny you should ask. There was, in fact, another one that we liked a lot, but not being Mr Shimaji, we could pick one cask only, not two. So our “other favourite” so to speak (because I don’t want to say “second favourite”) was a 6 year old (distilled towards the end of 2016) that was matured in a second-fill bourbon cask, but interestingly, the first fill had been peated Chichibu. Hideo and I are both partial to Chichibu matured in second-fill bourbon casks, and this sample was truly excellent. But it felt a bit more “classic” – and for the Ghost Series and for the Stamp Rally (with the idea being that people can taste something really unique at the bars they visit), we felt it was better to go with something that was one-of-a-kind.

The "Ii no Hayata Killing the Nue at the Imperial Palace” print used for the Ghost #21. 

What can you tell us about the woodblock print used for this bottling?

As I mentioned in the interview we did a short while ago, it is getting harder and harder – as the Ghost Series progresses – to select prints for the artwork that have a very direct connection with the liquid. With the early releases, this was possible, but now, sometimes it’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination and a bit more intuitive.

For this one, I chose “Ii no Hayata Killing the Nue at the Imperial Palace”. A “nue” is a supernatural creature that has the head of a monkey, the body of a raccoon, the legs of a tiger and a snake for a tail. I don’t want to bore people too much with the story itself that is depicted in this print (Google is your friend!) but I felt it was appropriate for this release… The mascot of Chichibu Beer is a polar bear and even though the woodblock print shows a violent event, it looks a bit like horseplay (to me, at least), so I imagined the print to be a sort of analogy of the Chichibu spirit (whisky) grappling with the Chichibu saison influence – and the result is what is in the bottle.

Try it at one of the participating bars. I hope you enjoy it as much we do!

Thanks once again Stefan for giving us such an awesome behind the scenes look at how the new Ghost #21 came to be - positively thrilling!

Check Out The Ghost Series: Facebook | Nonjatta Blog

Stefan's Book: Whisky Rising on Amazon

For readers out there, happy ghostbusting!

Kanpai!

@111hotpot