Tasting Notes
Color: Medium Amber
Nose: Vanilla and walnuts with layers of fruit: cherry and raspberry, pear and apple.
Palate: Citrus oil leads, followed by fleshy oranges, chocolate and oaky spices.
Finish: Fresh plums and red grapes with chocolate lingering.
History of Mars Whisky
Mars Whisky is a brand created by Hombo Suzo, producer of traditional Japanese spirits, proposing the bottlings of the Shinshu and Tsunuki distilleries. Located between Japan’s soaring Southern Alps and the towering Central Alps, at just over 2,600 feet, Mars Shinshu is Japan’s highest whisky distillery. The Hombo family have been distilling for more than a century and added whisky to their repertoire in 1949. At that time the distillery was located in the Tsunuki region of Kagoshima Prefecture on the southern-most island of Kyushu.
Until 1984, it was the southernmost whisky made in Japan, which ended when the Hombo clan moved the distillery to the idyllic alpine setting of Miyada village in southern Nagano Prefecture, Central Japan. They chose this site for its cool temperature, which slowed maturation, and the plentiful soft granite filtered snowmelt fed aquifers. In 2016, Hombo Shuzo reopened and introduced new pot stills to their first distillery location in Kagoshima now known as the Mars Tsunuki Distillery, once again Japan’s southernmost distillery.They also built an aging facility on a tiny island known as Yakushima, a National World Heritage site, where they now age spirits from both Shinshu and Tsunuki distilleries.
For more information visit: www.hombo.co.jp