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.