Hanshin Tigers 22 Year Old Victory Road Pure Malt 50cl 

This “Victory Road” bottle was released by Hombo Mars last 2003 to celebrate Hoshino Tiger’s victory. The decanter style bottle is infact a music box.

Mars Whisky is the whisky-producing subsidiary of Hombo Shuzo, a renowned shochu producer in Japan. Founded by Kiichiro Iwai, the company opened its first distillery, Shinshu, in 1985. Iwai is famed for being the man responsible for dispatching Masataka Taketsuru to Scotland, and it is no coincidence that the Shinshu stills are similar to those at Longmorn, also replicated by Taketsuru at his Yoichi distillery. Shinshu was closed in 1992 due to lack of demand, but the fortunes of Japanese whisky soon turned, and Mars Whisky re-opened it again in 2011, and established second distillery called Tsunuki in 2016. Nowadays it is one of the major players in the Japanese whisky market, bottling a number of sought after blends, as well as their single malt brand, Komagatake.

This bottle may be an unofficial celebration of the teams endeavours as their official whisky merchandise from 2003 tended to be produced by Ocean, a sign of the distilleries love for their team.