The term "angel's share" is pretty much known by every whisky drinker, you hear it all the time from those working in the distillery, and is euphemistically used to simplify why it is that whisky is so prized - because each year, some whisky gets evaporated from its cask. As the years go by - necessary to make good whisky - the lesser whisky is left in the cask for bottling, making what's left all the more precious. It's therefore jested that the supernatural explanation for the disappearance of the whisky is but a little offering made to the angel's who look after the casks as they sleep.

And for the most part it's pretty acceptable for these angel's to get off with something like 1-3% of whisky per year (it stacks up if you think about it). But sometimes these angels are just getting alittle too greedy. And if you've got a cask of Chichibu whisky, some of the most prized around, these angel's can get alittle too frisky.

In April 2024, Salud Spirits, a distributor in Netherlands and Austria, got the very fateful message from Chichibu saying that one of their single casks, #4569, had lost so much whisky during the maturation, that just 75 bottles of standard whisky bottles could be eked out of the cask! This was said to be a genuine first for Chichibu, which is otherwise known for its excellent cask management.

With perhaps the most stellar serenity about such news, Salud had decided to bottle the single cask of Chichibu as a one-off Spirits of Salud Angel's Favourite. What was otherwise meant to be bottled for Salud's popular 7 Gods of Fortune series would now stand on its own as a mark of such a rare occasion - after all, the angel's only go so hard after something that has to be good, as the lore goes!

The whisky itself is an 8 Year Old single cask, bottled at 63.5% ABV, with just 75 bottles produced; this was selected by Salud's panel of whisky connoisseurs Noortje Baselmans, Herbert Roenhorst, Ronald Zwartepoorte, Jan Smits and Martijn van Opstal. This whisky was made from Concerto barley, heavily peated, and subsequently aged in a 2nd Fill Bourbon Barrel. It sports a label that was designed by WARBB using AI; the same studio behind the labels for the 7 Gods of Fortune series.

Official Tasting Notes

Aroma: Tones of peat combined with vanilla and bacon, complex scents of mint and earl grey.

Taste: Umami flavors with the special tasting note seaweed and crayfish mingle with influences of licorice.

Finish: Long finish where the umami flavors continue beautifully.

Kanpai!

88 Bamboo Editorial Team