Kanosuke Distillery, the Kagoshima Prefecture craft whisky maker whose parent company counts Diageo as a minority shareholder, has released a single cask exclusively for CLAUDE WHISKY, a craft whisky specialty shop in Gifu Prefecture. The cask, filled in 2020 and bottled at five years old, is a heavily peated single malt matured in a first-fill bourbon cask, limited to just 197 bottles of 700ml (23.7 US fl oz) each at 60% ABV.
The distillery is run by Komasa Kanosuke Distillery Co., part of the Komasa Jozo shochu group founded in 1883, on the Fukiagehama coast in Hioki, Kagoshima. Kanosuke is unusual even among Japan’s craft distilleries for running three pot stills of different sizes rather than the standard two, a setup it uses to widen the range of flavors in its new-make spirit. Staff selected this particular cask five years ago and kept sampling it rather than bottling it on schedule. CLAUDE WHISKY owner Yuji Inoue, who opened the shop in October 2017 as one of Japan’s first stores dedicated solely to craft Japanese whisky, said each tasting session pushed the release back further while the team waited for the peat and the bourbon cask’s sweetness to fully integrate.
Bottled with a phenol level of 50ppm, the whisky carries notes of ripe pear, shaved bonito flakes and aonori seaweed on the nose, with grilled pineapple, karinto (a fried Japanese confection) and a touch of salinity on the palate. The finish leans on cask-driven sweetness wrapped around the peat smoke. CLAUDE WHISKY has built its reputation on refusing to stock bottles whose origin cannot be verified or that are presented as Japanese whisky without meeting the country’s labelling standard, a stance that has made it a reference point for collectors wary of mislabeled bottles.
What this means outside Japan
Kanosuke has built a following abroad since it began distilling in 2017, helped in part by Diageo’s minority stake in parent company Komasa Jozo. Its core range, including the standard Kanosuke single malt, already reaches export markets in the US, UK and Europe, and the distillery has become a fixture at overseas whisky shows. This single-cask bottling, however, works the way independent-bottler exclusives do in Scotland: it belongs to one retailer, was never intended for wide distribution, and will not be exported. Bottles will likely surface on secondary markets and at Japanese whisky auctions before they reach shelves abroad. For now, readers outside Japan can expect to find Kanosuke’s standard single malt, not this one, at their local retailer.
Source: Japanese Whisky Dictionary (Japanese)