Mars Tsunuki 2020 (LMDW)

Distilled at Tsunuki in 2020 and bottled in 2024 at 4 Years Old, this is a single cask single malt selected by La Maison du Whisky for release in France at cask strength. Tsunuki is Hombo Shuzo's Kagoshima distillery, opened in 2016 in the warm, subtropical climate of southern Kyushu, a region where humidity and heat work together to draw flavour from the cask more rapidly than in cooler Japanese distilling environments.

The cask is an Oloroso sherry hogshead, which at four years in Kagoshima's climate will have contributed considerable dark fruit, chocolate and dried fig character to the spirit. The hogshead format gives slightly more volume per unit of spirit than a barrel, tempering the wood extraction a little while still delivering the full Oloroso influence. At 58.2% cask strength and without specific tasting notes entered, the expected profile shows raisin, walnut and bitter chocolate alongside the distillery's characteristic citric and tropical base, warmed by the Kagoshima climate.