Prices
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More from this distillery: All Mars whiskies and prices
About
What it is
A blended malt introduced in 2015 as part of the Mars core range, bottled at 43%. Named after Mount Kosmo in the Central Japanese Alps, near the distillery. It's one of the most widely available Mars products outside Japan.
Where it comes from
Cosmo combines malt whisky from Mars Shinshu with malt whisky from undisclosed Scottish distilleries. That means it can't meet the Japan Spirits and Liqueurs Makers Association standard, which requires distillation in Japan. Hombo Shuzo doesn't publish the ratio, and the box reads blended and bottled by Hombo Shuzo rather than making a country claim, which is the tell.
Transparency around imported malt is not the strong suit of this part of the industry, and Mars is fairly typical rather than unusually bad.
How it's made
Mars Shinshu sits at 798 metres in Nagano, the highest whisky distillery in Japan. It was built in 1985, mothballed in 1992 when demand collapsed, and restarted in 2011. The pot stills were designed from Kiichiro Iwai's notes, which in turn drew on Masataka Taketsuru's records from Scotland. Blending and bottling happen at Shinshu. Cask detail for Cosmo isn't published.
What to expect
Sweet and easy. Vanilla up front, then cherry and raspberry, orange oil and chocolate, with toasted oak and a hint of smoke. There's a little more body than the 43% suggests. It's pleasant and uncomplicated rather than deep.
How it compares
Against Mars Iwai and Iwai Tradition, the cheaper blends in the range, Cosmo is the more malt-driven one. Against Amahagan World Malt from Nagahama, you're in the same territory of Japanese malt blended with imported malt, though Nagahama is more explicit about it. Against the Mars Komagatake single malts, those are the distillery's own spirit and the ones to reach for if provenance matters to you.
