We show that if X is a smooth Fano manifold which carries a Kähler Ricci soliton, then the canonical cone of the product of X with a complex projective space of sufficiently large dimension is a Calabi–Yau cone, i.e. admits a Ricci-flat Kähler cone metric. This can be seen as an asymptotic version of a conjecture by Mabuchi and Nikagawa. This result is obtained by the relative openness of the set of weight functions v over the momentum polytope of a given smooth Fano manifold, for which a v-soliton exists. We discuss other ramifications of this approach, including a Licherowicz type obstruction to the existence of a Kähler Ricci soliton and a Fujita type volume bound for the existence of a v-soliton.