Chichibu, b.2015, Ichiro's Malt, Solera Aged Pure Malt, Wine Wood Reserve, Ghost Series No. 6, 23/28, 59.5% abv.

The Ghost Series was started in 2013 by Stefan van Eycken of nonjatta and Whisky Rising fame off the theme of Taiso Yoshitoshi's ukiyo-e prints "New Forms of 36 Ghosts" as labels and Japanese whiskies as juice. This label depicts print 31: Poet Sogi encounters two ghosts. Basically the poet sees two ghosts arguing over how to complete their poem at his lodging. He helps complete the poem, which irritates the ghosts and causes them to disappwar/leave in a threatening manner. Like most Ghost Series bottles, this has a unique backstory. The reason why there are only 28 bottles for the 6th release is because the original wine wood ovum that was maturing solera-ed Chichibu had a leak, resulting in only 28 bottles. Therefore Stefan's plan had to change from multiple distribution to personal delivery across 28 bars in Japan. To ensure these rare bottles wouldn't be on the secondary, he ordered a shot at each bar he delivered to. This is all on the nonjatta website.

Nose: great body, slightly toasty, bread, like a good hearty vegetable soup, honey.

Palate: extremely well balanced in the sense that the honey sweetness isn't too strong and isn't too light, honey and sweetness everywhere, nuts (but not cashews or walnuts), back palate had the heat.

Finish: medium to long, general honey sweetness, some abv numbness.

Its quite nice, couldn't tell the abv was 60%, made me focus on the different levels of sweetness, but a sweetness more attributed to some nuts. Even so, it felt like a lesser version of the Karuizawa 5006 I just had. One thing that I always found interesting was that since Stephan personally delivered and made the first order for this bottling, how did any bottle end up in an individual's private photos/auctions?

Grade: B-

Couldn't find quantifiable, reliable reviews.