Chichibu Daini (Chichibu II)

Six hundred meters. In most places, that distance might separate neighbors. In Chichibu, it separates chapters of the same unfolding story.

When Ichiro Akuto walked those few hundred meters from his original distillery to the Midorigaoka Industrial Park in 2019, he carried with him a decade of learning, of mistakes transformed into wisdom. The first Chichibu had been resurrection—saving Japanese whisky from extinction. This second distillery would be evolution.

The same mountain springs that feed the original still flow here, threading through volcanic rock and ancient cedar roots before emerging crystal-clear. Water knows no boundaries between old and new; it simply follows the path of least resistance, as tradition does when it adapts.

But adaptation means choice, and Akuto chose boldness. Where the first distillery whispers with steam-heated stills, Chichibu Daini roars with direct flame. Two Forsyths copper pot stills—10,000 and 7,000 liters—stand like sentinels in the stillhouse, their straight heads catching the dance of gas-fired heat below. The flame licks copper directly, creating conversation between metal and fire that steam cannot replicate. It's a more aggressive courtship, one that coaxes deeper, more characterful notes from the distilling wash.

French oak washbacks from Taransaud replace the mizunara of the original—another deliberate departure. Here, fermentation happens in vessels that speak of Limousin forests rather than Japanese mountains, yet the yeast still transforms Chichibu barley into something distinctly local.

By October 2019, the stills were singing their first songs. The production capacity—240,000 liters per annum—dwarfs the original by five times, yet this isn't about scale for scale's sake. It's about meeting demand while maintaining the monozukuri spirit that refuses to compromise craft for convenience.

In 2025, the first bottles bearing the name "Chichibu Distillery II" will find their way to glasses worldwide. They'll carry within them the bold character that direct firing creates, the patience that six years of maturation demands, and the vision of a man who understood that sometimes moving forward means taking everything you've learned and daring to do it differently.

The mountain springs continue to flow, connecting past to future across six hundred meters of possibility.