Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
Scarlet Muscat Amaro is one of those products that makes you pause and reassess what you thought you knew about a distillery’s range.
Sakurao Distillery — primarily known in the international whisky community for their coastal Hiroshima single malt — also produces vodka using local ingredients. The Scarlet Muscat Amaro is built on a Sakurao vodka base, infused with muscat grapes from Hiroshima’s own viticulture tradition, and developed along the lines of an Italian amaro: bitter herbal complexity balanced against fruit sweetness and the clean spirit base.
Hiroshima’s Muscat Heritage
Hiroshima Prefecture has a significant history of muscat cultivation — the seedless, aromatic variety of grape that is prized in Japan both for fresh consumption and for wine and spirits production. The prefecture’s mild maritime climate, shaped by the Seto Inland Sea, creates conditions suitable for wine grapes in a way that much of Japan’s mainland does not easily allow.
Using local muscat as the aromatic basis for an amaro-style spirit is a statement about Hiroshima’s own agricultural terroir — not just about whisky production, but about what this region produces and what can be made from it.
Scarlet Muscat Amaro and Sakurao whisky expressions are available at Bar Little Happiness. Read the full Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/scarlet-muscat-amaro-sakurao-vodka/
Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
Open Mon–Sat 7PM–12:30AM, Sun 7PM–midnight
No cover charge. Walk-ins welcome.
english.little-happiness.jp