Ichiro's Malt is an independent Japanese whiskey bottling company . It was created by Ichiro Akuto , in an exceptionally modest premises in Chichibu , a city 100 km northwest of Tokyo, with only two small stills. Akuto's education in whiskey distilling came from the family business. His grandfather was originally a maker and manager of a sake brewery, the Hanyu Distillery, founded in 1625, before he obtained a distiller's license to produce whiskey in 1941. Akuto continued the work his grandfather had started and his passion for whiskey led him to purchase two stills from Scotland that could produce around 400 casks. In 2000, economic decline in Japan and a reduction in sake consumption forced the family to sell their business. However, Ichiro Akuto turned this potential crisis into an opportunity and reclaimed the stills and barrels of maturing whiskey from the brewery's new owners. Today, Ichiro Akuto continues to implement the techniques learned over many years at the Hanyu Distillery and is one of Japan's most ambitious distillers in business. Some 4,000 casks of Sherry, wine and Bourbon are currently being matured, while he has begun experiments to grow barley locally, in hopes of producing a truly Japanese whisky. This edition of Chichibu was distilled in 2013 and then aged in a single cask ( #9664) that once contained wine. 263 bottles were produced.