Mars Shinshu

Shinshu is a Japanese whisky distillery founded in 1985 in the village of Miyada. It is the highest distillery in Japan, standing 800 metres above sea level in the Japanese Alps.

The distillery is owned by the Hombo Shuzo Co and produces spirit for use in their Mars whisky products. 

Shinshu produces a range of different flavour profiles depending on the requirements of the blender.

There are four different operating levels used to create the spirit: unpeated, lightly peated, heavily peated and super-heavily peated.

Single malt bottlings have showcased a light, clean style with well-balanced, fruity flavours.

Whisky is produced for eight months a year. The rest of the time the plant is used to produce grain whisky and other spirits like brandy.

Four different barley specifications are used. Unpeated, lightly peated at 3.5 phenol parts per million (ppm), heavily peated at 20ppm and super-heavily peated at 50ppm.

Shinshu’s pot stills were designed by Kichiro Iwai, based on the notes of Masataka Taketsuru. They closely resemble the type used at Nikka’s Yoichi distillery.

Spirit matures in a variety of cask types. Ex-bourbon barrels are the most common but the warehouses also contain ex-Shochu and Yamanashi wine casks. Mizunara oak and various fortified wines like sherry and port have also been filled.

The small-batch Komagatake edition is bottled every year. The whisky is created by blending newer whisky with old spirit, distilled before Shinshu was mothballed in 1992. The Komagatake name comes from one of the mountains that towers over the distillery.

Shinshu also contributes to the company’s Maltage Cosmo and Kasei blended whisky brands. 

All Japanese whisky seemingly connects in some way to Masataka Taketsuru. In 1918, Masataka was sent to Scotland to work at several Scotch whisky distilleries. His employer, Settsu Breweries planned to construct their own distillery on his return.

When Masataka returned to Japan, Settsu was having financial difficulties. He resigned and joined Suntory where he would establish Yamasaki Distillery.    

Taketsuru’s manager at Settsu was Iwai Kiichiro. When Masataka left, Iwai was recruited by Hombo Breweries as an advisor. A few years later, Hombo acquired a license to produce whisky.

Using notes left by Masataka, Iwai designed a distillery in the Yamanashi prefecture. However, the spirit failed to make an impact and the distillery closed after just nine years.

Later, when whisky boomed in Japan, Hombo began to produce spirit in their headquarters in Kagoshima. The location was hot and humid and not ideal for whisky-making. For the operation to achieve long-term success, it was decided that a new location would have to be found.

A site was finally chosen in 1985 and Shinshu distillery was born. Within a few short years, however, the Japanese economy stagnated. Demand for luxury items like whisky plummeted and Shinshu was mothballed in 1992.

Production resumed in 2011 and Hombo added a second distillery to their portfolio in 2016. Tsunuki was designed to produce a contrasting style of whisky. 

In 2013, Mars Maltage 3, which included spirit from Shinshu, won Best Blended Whisky at the World Whiskies Awards.