Wow, a lot going on here, an Ichiro's Malt, a single cask Chichibu from 2009, Shinanoya and their 5th anniversary is involved, a chibidaru too! A chibidaru (i believe translates to "little cask", but in a cutesy way) is a quarter cask made from a hogshead... a mizunara hogshead? I wonder why they do that. These chichibu chibidaru tend to do well from what I've read online.

Nose: starts off with brown paper bag, legumes, light minerals, with time I also get green apples, green apple skin, ... suddenly changes to a sort of strawberry jolly rancher, rich vanilla, brown sugar, an overall sweet hard candy. Needs a lot of air time.

Palate: medium body, mouth coating, slightly viscous, initial palate is like a sweetened lemon candy, mid palate has the spice and sourness ramp up quickly, vanilla, hint of something akin to light smoke, seems simple but it's definitely not, has a sweetness that I don't know how to describe, grape cough syrup! back palate has the more rough elements take the front.

Finish: medium, spicey, but the cough syrup aspects are long.

The vanilla aspects seemed to be coupled with a sort of grape cough syrup type of flavor. That about summarizes everything.

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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