Spirits · Minamisatsuma, Kagoshima
Mars Tsunuki Distillery
A warm-climate Kyushu whisky distillery in the Hombo family's home region.
- Founded
- 2016
- Based in
- Minamisatsuma, Kagoshima
Making it since
2016
Their story
Mars Tsunuki is the second whisky distillery of Hombo Shuzo, a family company that has made shochu in Kagoshima since 1872. It opened in 2016 in Minamisatsuma, near the southern tip of Kyushu, close to where the company began.
The setting is the opposite of its mountain sister, Mars Shinshu in Nagano. Kagoshima is warm and humid, and whisky matures quickly here. Distillery manager Tatsuro Kusano has used that to experiment with fermentation times, specialty malts and local barley.
How it's made
Two pot stills with worm tub condensers produce a heavier, richer spirit than Hombo's Nagano distillery. Fermentation runs 72 to 96 hours in stainless vessels. Casks are aged in three places: at Tsunuki, at the cold Shinshu site, and in a subtropical warehouse on Yakushima island.
With two distilleries and three maturation sites we are able to produce a wide variety of whiskies.
Why we carry them
We enjoy pouring Tsunuki next to Shinshu so people can taste what climate does to whisky. This one is deeper and more robust.
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