2022 Mars Tsunuki Single Malt Edition Japanese Whisky 700ml

Six years after its first spirit ran off the stills, the Tsunuki distillery arrived at something every young whisky maker chases: an identity. The 2022 Edition is Tsunuki start to finish — mashed, distilled, matured, and bottled on the same plot of land in rural Kagoshima, with no borrowed stock and no detours.

Discipline defines the cask bill. Rather than reaching for flashy finishes, the team leaned on first-fill and second-fill bourbon barrels over three to four years, letting the subtropical warehouse do the heavy lifting. A barely-there 3.5 ppm peating level hums underneath, felt more as depth than as smoke.

Bottled at 50% and non-chill filtered, the release ran to 35,800 bottles worldwide, with only a small fraction crossing into the American market. The judges noticed what the volume numbers hide: this edition took Double Gold at the 2023 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, a striking result for a distillery not yet a decade old.

Lemon cake and steeped black tea rise first from the glass, trailed by a wisp of smoke. Orange marmalade sweeps the palate with sweet-bitter citrus, deepened by buttered toast and cocoa nib, before a clean, gently drying finish. Give it ten minutes of air; the citrus keeps opening.

• Size: 700ml
• Proof: 100 (50% ABV)
• Age: Aged 3 to 4 years
• Origin: Kagoshima, Japan
• Distillery: Mars Tsunuki Distillery, Hombo Shuzo
• Style: Single malt Japanese whisky, annual edition
• Composition: Lightly peated (3.5 ppm) malted barley, non-chill filtered
• Cask/Aging: First-fill and second-fill ex-bourbon barrels
• Tasting Notes: Lemon cake, black tea, light smoke, orange marmalade, buttered toast, cocoa nib