Japan's Kanosuke Distillery Launches Its Core Three Whiskies in the U.S.

Kanosuke Distillery was founded in 2017 as part of a wave of new players in Japan’s ongoing whisky renaissance. As its whisky has matured, the distillery has been offering a handful of limited releases, including single malts in 2022 and 2023, among others. Now Kanosuke is rolling out its three core expressions—a flagship single malt, a pot still single grain whisky, and a blend—with an initial focus on distribution in New York and California. Here are the whiskies:

Kanosuke Japanese Single Malt, 48%, $100/700 ml

The flagship label has no age statement, but the whisky is aged 3-5 years and matured in a combination of shochu, sherry, and bourbon casks.

Kanosuke Hioki Japanese Pot Still Grain, 51%, $110/700 ml

No age statement, but with an average age of over 3 years, inspired by Irish single pot still whiskey and aged in new American oak and bourbon barrels.

Kanosuke Double Distillery Japanese Blend, 53%, $120/700 ml

A blend of Kanosuke single malt and single grain pot still whisky, aged in new American white oak puncheons, bourbon barrels, re-charred shochu barrels, and sherry butts.

Kanosuke is set along a beachfront in Kagoshima Prefecture at the southern tip of Kyushu Island, the southernmost of Japan’s five main islands. (Prefectures are like U.S. states—Japan has 43 of them.) With its subtropical climate, Kagoshima’s terroir includes hot springs, volcanoes, warm and humid summers, and frigid winter weather, its coastline buffeted by stiff winds from the East China Sea. Those temperature shifts help accelerate the whisky’s exchange with the barrel wood during maturation, creating depth and a mellow taste profile, says Kanosuke founder Yoshitsugu Komasa, who adds that there’s also a high angels’ share at Kanosuke of 6%-7% a year, compared to an average of around 2% in Scotland and as high as 5% in Kentucky. The distillery’s presence by the sea also tilts the whiskies toward notes of salinity and minerality.

In the drinks world, the Kagoshima area is most renowned for its shochu production, and the Komasa name is well known here. Kanosuke’s founder is a fourth-generation owner of the shochu maker Komasa Jyozo, which was founded in 1883 by his great-grandfather and is located just down the road from the whisky distillery. Shochu remains the family’s primary focus, but Yoshitsugu Komasa wants to take the company in new directions—hence the whisky distillery, as well as its Komasa craft gin. But the company’s shochu roots inform the whisky making at Kanosuke. Yoshitsugu’s grandfather, Kanosuke Komasa, is remembered for creating the Mellowed Kozuru brand, the world’s first barrel-aged shochu, back in 1957. His use of vacuum distillation, steamed barley, and aging in re-charred shochu casks are all used at Kanosuke, and the distillery is named for him.

Distilling at Kanosuke began in early 2018, with three pot stills—a wash still, a hybrid still known as Spirits Still 1, and a spirits still called Spirits Still 2. The distillery imports peated and unpeated malt from the UK—the amount of peated malt is small, at around 15% of the total, according to Yoshitsugu, and is used for the single malt and Double Distillery blend. About 10% of the total barley supply is also locally sourced from Kyushu.

Even with the shochu influences, the main focus is on traditional Scottish methods, including the use of worm tubs. The grain whisky for Kanosuke’s single grain expression is batch distilled at its sister distillery Hioki, a shochu producer nearby that became licensed to make grain whisky in 2020.

With its U.S. presence currently only in New York and California, the inevitable question arises: How much liquid will be available going forward? The distillery says about 10% of its production is being allocated to the U.S. Kanosuke is a relatively small distillery with 200,000 lpa of annual capacity—tiny, of course, compared to multimillion-lpa capacities of big single malt scotch players like Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, and Macallan but roughly on a par with similar new scotch distillers like Isle of Raasay. Its three stills have a capacity of 6,000 lpa for the wash still, 3,000, lpa for the hybrid Spirits Still 1, and 1,600 lpa for Spirits Still 2. Kanosuke has 10 stainless steel fermentation tanks at 7,000 liters each. The distillery has its own small aging cellar with a 160-cask capacity, but has access to four of the parent company’s shochu aging cellars nearby, all rack style and each with capacity of 600 casks. One of those cellars has been given over to whisky aging.

While still part of the Komasa family, Kanosuke is now legally separated from its parent company and operates independently. In 2021 it partnered with Distill Ventures, the Diageo-owned investment group that develops fledgling spirits makers. Distill has promised help on the marketing and distribution side, but ultimately Kanosuke likely will need to make more whisky. It's not yet clear how the Distill partnership can make that happen, but one future route would be the building of a second distillery, as Chichibu Distillery did with Chichibu 2 in 2019. It’s still too early to consider such a plan, and for now Yoshitsugu says they’ll “continue working hard to expand into the entire U.S. market.”

While all of that awaits, Kanosuke has already become a popular travel destination, for now mainly with visitors from neighboring Asian countries, helped by Kyushu’s various visitor attractions, notably the active (but reputedly safe) Sakurajima volcano. The distillery itself is a modern architectural gem, and its tasting room and bar, the latter known as the Mellow Bar, offer stunning views of the sea.

Japan’s whisky renaissance began in the early 2000s, with new distilleries opening in a manner similar to what’s been seen in Ireland and in the U.S. craft distilling boom. It was led strongly at first by Chichibu Distillery, which was founded in 2008, and others besides Kanosuke include Shizuoka, Mars Tsunuki, and Akkeshi, all three founded in 2016.