Mars Maltage Triple Cask Malt Whisky Vintage Satsuma, 1984, 20 years, sherry cask no. 1683, 1684, 1691, 0232/1752, 55% abv.

This Hombo Mars bottling was distilled in 1984, making it a product of the old distillery "Kagoshima" (now called Tsunuki) before Mars moved east to form "Shinsu". I believe this bottling shares some history with the "Lost Butterfly" bottle, of which I posted tasting notes for on Dec. 27, 2018. Supposedly the casks used in this bottling (or similar bottlings) served as a foundation for "The Malt of Kagoshima". Some leftovers from that bottling were released several years later as "Lost Butterfly". I'm most likely missing something.

Nose: sour apples and perfume, vegetative, quite fragrant, has a slight sharpness to it, extremely unbalanced as I could feel a pull between a sour fruity aroma against a more full bodied vegetative juice.

Palate: seems to be well bodied, dry, a little powdery on the tongue, initial palate is sour and vegetative, mid palate is black peppers and some hints of beef or pork, back palate is sour fruit and smoke with the smoke overtaking everything with more sips, unfortunately its not a good, tasty smoke that I'm used to in Islay malts. Overall its wooden grapes with lotus leaves.

Finish: dry, medium, slightly smokey, getting towards that old wet steamed lotus leaves aftertaste.

This one was a little off for me, I admit I expected much more from Mars, but I should have known their old stock and blends don't seem to perform as well in my opinion, just too unbalanced and perhaps some weird cask stuff going on. Flavors weren't very memorable and it ended up being like leather, wood, and old wet steamed lotus leaves.

Grade: D

Whiskyfun.com, Serge, 73 points

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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