Chichibu has aced the private bottling game with by now hundreds (might even be a thousand actually) of private bottlings for a whole host of private buyers - departmental store, airlines, hotels, you name it.

Folks have devoted their lives to just putting together specific series like its the Infinity Stones. And yet, I daresay one of the most collected series is that of the annual Paris Edition - and could you blame anyone? It consistently sports really gorgeous labels. There's also a London and US edition as well, all three of which are bottled for spirits retailer La Maison du Whisky.

And so today we have the fifth edition of the Paris Edition, this time featuring the lithograph works from French Art Nouveau artist, Henri Rivière (1864 - 1951), depicting an illustration from his seminal work, 36 Views of the Eiffel Tower. The book was published in 1902 and was inspired by the work 36 Views of Mount Fuji by renowned Japanese artist Hokusai, famous for his work The Great Wave Off Kanagawa.

The 2022 Paris Edition comes from a blend of Chichibus primarily aged in ex-bourbon casks and peated Chichibus aged for between six and seven years. 

Chichibu Paris Edition 2022 - Review

Tasting Notes

Color: Sunflower Oil Gold

Aroma: A deep sweetness, honey, stewed green apples - lightly tart and green. There’s more on black pepper and eucalyptus, as well as manuka honey. There’s a touch of sourness of overripe orchard fruit skins and medicinal touch of dried ginseng and camphor. There’s alittle bit of smoke but it’s not particularly distinguishable from the overall heat. Continues to get brighter and sweeter with time, with more on peach compote.

Taste: Honeyed and rounded, opening up to more ripe stone fruits - apricots. It turns more medicinal but still very gentle - smoke, lemon candy, light medicinal, herbaceousness - dried basil. There’s some black tea tannins here as well. Peppery all round.

Finish: A gentle warmth, very Islay-like - light medicinal touch, slight salinity and soot. A final burst of honey and cream on peaches, as well as custard pudding.

My Thoughts

This is pretty much a mash up of classic Chichibu flavours - the green apples, stewed fruits, honey and cream, peppery bits - and the textbook Islay flavours - medicinal bitterness, smoke, sea salt.

Here it’s more Chichibu than Islay and still tends towards an overall estery sweetness of concentrated sugars and fruitiness that is enjoyable. The palate is also well-rounded and integrated - well, on the whole it’s pretty well-done… but it just lacks that spark. It’s good but not great, there’s not too much to write home about, or anything that really stands out - good or bad.  

You can probably still try it at La Maison du Whisky bars - Singapore, at least, but I'm pretty sure you can find it around Europe.

Kanpai!

@111hotpot