The Mars Shinshu Mars 2013 Cask #1706

The Mars 2013 Cask 1706 is a single cask single malt from Mars Shinshu, Hombo Shuzo's distillery in Miyada, Nagano, filling and maturing in an American White Oak cask before bottling in 2016 at the natural cask strength of 55%. The Japanese market release is one of several single cask expressions from the 2013 vintage, each isolating a specific cask's contribution to the clean mountain character of the site.

Three years in American White Oak at the cool, stable temperatures of the Central Alps typically yields a fresh, vanilla-forward spirit with gentle cereal and resinous wood notes. At 55%, the whisky has moderate intensity for a cask strength bottling, giving it a slightly more integrated texture than the higher-proof expressions from the same period. The absence of specific flavour notes for this cask means the profile is inferred from the house pattern: clean, lightly sweet and wood-forward.