Scarlet 'Aperitivo' Bitter Liqueur

The flagship brand of Kanagawa prefecture’s Iseya Distillery, Scarlet is a range of small batch Japanese bitters and amari inspired by historical styles of aperitivi and digestivi—from traditional red bitters to herbal Alpine liqueurs—handcrafted by veteran bartender Tatsuya “Moto” Motonaga.

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 stainless steel tanks and/or 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.