14/01/2025
PRODUCER SPOTLIGHT: Iseya Distillery, Kanagawa, Japan. .iseya
This amazing range of amaros and bitters is made by Tatsuya Motonaga, who founded Iseya Distillery in Lake Sagami, Kanagawa, in 2021.
The distillery is housed in a repurposed, traditional 100-year-old house, where each batch of Scarlet is handmade and hand bottled from majority local ingredients, including Motonaga’s own botanicals.
Before Iseya, Motonaga’s career was spent working in some of the world’s greatest cocktail bars: Shibuya’s Coal Ila, Shinjuku’s BenFiddich and Taipei’s Wa-shu just to name a few. Here, he grew a desire to create a unique Japanese amaro brand, and started this journey by making a trip across Europe and the UK, visiting more than 70 distilleries.
He became enamoured with the nuance and beauty of the time-honoured craftsmanship and local agricultural practices that give us some of the world’s greatest beverages.
His Scarlet range embodies this essence. Every process is done without machines, from filtering and bottling, to labelling and sealing. They are rich with the incredible character and herbaceousness of their raw ingredients, making for the most satisfying of sips after a meal.
Be sure to ask us about Scarlet next time you’re in for dinner; no meal is complete without a short glass of one of these inspiring drinks!
