Kanosuke

On a sunset beach in Kagoshima — shochu country, Japan's deep south — the Komasa family turned a century of shochu craft toward whisky in 2017. Kanosuke's three pot stills (unusual for a small house) and casks seasoned with the family's own barrel-aged shochu give a mellow, subtropically-matured malt with a signature sweetness. The most southerly voice in Japanese whisky's new generation, and among the most promising.