Prices
Prices and stock come from each retailer's website. Check with the store before you buy.
More from this distillery: All Kanosuke whiskies and prices
About
What it is
A single malt from Kanosuke vatted from sherry casks and bottled at 48%. It sits alongside the core Kanosuke Single Malt as a cask-focused variation rather than a limited annual edition, and it's one of the more affordable ways into the distillery.
Where it comes from
Kanosuke Distillery on Fukiage beach in Kagoshima, built in 2017 by Komasa Jyozo. Single malt distilled and matured entirely on site with no imported component. The distillery publishes production information per release, which puts it among the more transparent Japanese craft producers.
How it's made
Sherry is the scarcest wood in Kanosuke's warehouse. In the first distilling season the distillery filled roughly 100 re-charred ex-shochu casks, 50 ex-bourbon barrels and only 30 oloroso sherry casks, so anything built around sherry is working from a small pool. The distillery's signature is those re-charred casks that previously held Mellowed Kozuru rice shochu, which behave close to virgin oak and drive fast maturation in Kagoshima's warm coastal climate. Non-chill filtered, no colour added.
What to expect
Dried fruit, raisin and nuts from the sherry wood over the distillery's fruit-forward malt, with vanilla and oak spice behind it. At 48% it's approachable neat, which the cask strength editions really aren't, and the sherry influence is clear without tipping into sherry bomb territory.
How it compares
Against the core Kanosuke Single Malt at the same strength, that one is shochu cask led and this is sherry led, making them a clean side by side. Against the 2022 Limited Edition, that also brings sherry forward but at 59% and with a small, specific parcel of casks. Against the Double Distillery blend, this is the purer single malt expression. If you want to understand what Kagoshima's climate does to sherry wood, start here.
