Ichiro Akuto is the founder of the Chichibu distillery and is recognized worldwide as one of the best independent distillers. The distillery operational since 2008 has burned practically all stages, the various releases under the name of Chichibu (single malt) and Ichiro's Malt (blend) are in great demand in every corner of the globe.

It is a blend of Japanese whiskeys from the now legendary Hanyu distillery with selected others from: Scotland, Ireland, the United States and Canada. The latter were distilled in the countries of origin and aged for 3 to 5 years and then for one to 3 years in the Chichibu warehouses. This particular worldwide blended whiskey was bottled at 46% vol. without being cold filtered and without dyes.