Iseya Distillery Scarlet Masala Amaro

28 % ABV

• Limited edition amaro produced by Iseya Distillery in Sagamihara, Japan
• Made with over 38 botanicals featuring yuzu peel, buckwheat seed, sansho leaf, turmeric, green cardamom, black cardamom, licorice root, kuromoji (Japanese laurel), mace, passion fruit root, galangal, and angelica root
• Base spirit of mugi shochu is single-pot-distilled from two-row malted barley fermented using white koji by Tenpai Distillery in Fukuoka, Japan
• Botanicals are macerated in shochu for two months

Importer Notes:
Produced in collaboration with Fukuoka’s Tenpai Distillery and acclaimed new South Indian restaurant Kidilum in New York, Scarlet’s Masala Amaro is a notable departure from previous releases. Starting with a base of mugi shochu instead of sugarcane spirit, Tatsuya Motonaga used the expressive base to craft an entirely new botanical blend. In keeping with the spirit of the collaboration, he traveled to India in search of select botanicals to complement his own estate-grown and locally sourced Japanese botanicals, resulting in an innovative expression that pushes the boundaries of traditional amari.

About Iseya Distillery:
Osaka-born Tatsuya Motonaga cut his teeth working at some of the most creative and botanically driven cocktail bars in Asia, including Tokyo’s Bar Benfiddich and WA-SHU in Taipei, Taiwan, before the events of 2020 necessitated a career shift. Drawing on his deep, long-held appreciation of amaro, Motonaga took it upon himself to travel across Europe, visiting over 70 distilleries in an effort to better understand the methodology and production techniques of some of the continent’s oldest producers of botanical spirits and liqueurs. Equipped with this centuries-old knowledge, Motonaga returned to Japan and in 2021 established the Iseya Distillery in a 100-year-old house located less than two kilometers from Lake Sagami.

The Iseya Distillery rents a neighboring farm that grows many of the botanicals used in the production of Scarlet liqueurs, all of which are farmed by Motonaga himself without pesticides and with minimal human intervention. Dried and fresh botanicals are macerated in stainless steel tanks using neutral spirit distilled from sugarcane, and the botanicals are organized either individually or in groups according to four categories: grasses and leaves, roots, woods and barks, and peels. The infusions are meticulously blended, sweetened using beet sugar, honey, or refined sugar depending on the expression,  and then rested in oak casks before being bottled, labeled, and waxed-sealed by hand.

Representing the first commercially packaged and exported Japanese amari, Scarlet has captured the hearts and minds of bartenders and spirits enthusiasts the world over with its expertly crafted range of both continuously produced and limited release bitters, establishing the fledgling brand as one of the most exciting new additions to the contemporary craft landscape.