Not so long ago, the craft gin scene in the UK exploded, with countless small distillers experimenting to create a host of new, exciting products. This new school paid homage to the classics while all adding their own personalities, with many going on to great success and ubiquity.
A few years later, Japan saw this and had its own ideas. What followed was a flowering of some of the most inspired recipes ever bottled, in our opinion, and a burgeoning scene that explored gin in new ways. We’d like to talk some more about what Japanese gin is, what makes it distinct, and why it might be worth your time to try some.
Drinking in Japan
To understand how Japan’s gin culture got underway, it first helps to understand the base it’s built on. Japan has a rich culture of endemic drinks, which prime the local palate and help to make gin produced there so distinctive.
Sake and Shōchu
Sake, or Nihonshu as it’s known in Japan (i.e. “Japanese alcohol”) is the country’s bedrock. Eclipsed in popularity only by beer, it’s an iconic drink and is understood as a key component of Japanese cuisine. Produced from polished rice, its production is analogous to wine in the way its flavours vary by terroir and process, and it accompanies food and special occasions in much the same way.
Shōchu is often seen as its stronger cousin, requiring distillation, but is really a much different drink. Produced from rice, but also from other staples such as sweet potato, barley or buckwheat, it tends to be treated as a spirit, while topping out at 20-30%. It’s popular either served short and strong or mixed with soda and fruit flavours, such as in the ubiquitous (and lethal) chūhai sold in konbinis.
Awamori
A rarer sight outside the country, but as famous as shōchu in its homeland of Okinawa, is Awamori. Made from long-grain indica rice, distinct from the shorter japonica grains in the rest of the country, it’s a little stronger at around 30-40%, including a particularly insane variety called hanadaki, which is flammable at 60% alcohol. Awamori is generally consumed with ice and water, and tastes a little earthier and more robust than shōchu. Which is better? It’s an impossible question.
Japanese Whisky
Japanese whisky has been made since the early 20th century, when Japanese distillers put serious time into studying the Scottish techniques, turning out world-class single malts as a result. Japan is now the largest whisky distiller in the world, and while it may not have quite the heritage of its Scottish forebears, it long ago proved itself as able to beat the best. From Suntory’s Yamazaki in Osaka, to Nikka in Hokkaido, all Japanese distillers follow strict guidelines on production methods, guaranteeing an authentic and outstanding product. Whether in affordable blends mixed into highballs (whisky and soda) to the very best and exclusive limited-run single malts, whisky in Japan is a very serious business.
Terroir
For those of us here in the UK, it’s tempting to think of Japan as a little like ourselves; a small island country. It isn’t, particularly. For one, Japan’s archipelago stretches nearly 2,000 miles (3,000km) from the alpine forests and heavy snows of Hokkaido to the sultry beaches of Okinawa. Furthermore, whilst the UK has a lot of agricultural land with the population more-or-less evenly distributed across it, Japan is much more mountainous, with people squeezed into narrow strips of land near the ocean - this helps to explain the enormous cities, for example. The country’s relative geographic isolation, varied weather patterns and rich volcanic soil creates some unique conditions for botanicals to grow.
Drink & Cocktail Culture
Japan’s drinking culture is as complex and ingrained as it is anywhere, but the country’s cocktail bars are what really interests us at Hidden Curiosities. With innovative and experimental mixology, often served in deeply intimate and atmospheric surroundings, Japan’s bars make for an unforgettable night out. And we do mean this across the board really; you can start at a hotel sky bar, drop into a historic quarter of tangled alleys for a cocktail that blows the mind, then finish the night in a gritty izakaya singing karaoke with the owner. Being a nation that is heavily in thrall to societal norms, the bar is where people go to loosen their restraints.
A cocktail bar in Japan is another one of those paradoxes - something inherently imported that is totally and utterly distinctive to the country. It’s also a place where traditional flavours and highly-regarded artisan products meet new combinations, dramatic serves, and rare expressions of the good stuff.
How Japanese Drinks Companies Work
Japanese corporate culture can be a little opaque to outsiders at first. The country’s drinks industry is dominated by large umbrella companies, within which there are divisions producing everything from bottled water and tea, to high-end whiskies and shōchu intended for export. Why they exist is an interesting historical point in itself, but the sheer size of these companies gives them significant weight in the global market. For example, the Asahi group has 37% of the market share of brewing, while Suntory is arguably the biggest player in spirits. Kirin, while famous for its beer, is a diversified company that is part of the Mitsubishi group, itself making everything from escalators to nuclear reactors. Takara specialises in traditional drinks like sake and shōchu, while Sapporo is the oldest brewer in Japan.
Internationally famous companies with enormous market capacities, producing an incredible amount of product - you’d think that that would be the end of the story, but these apparent monopolies have interesting effects. Not only do these companies have the financial heft required to take risks and support new ventures, they crucially lack the agility to do things the same way as smaller distillers, allowing for experiments to happen away from the corporate glare, as well as giving smaller companies a ladder to get their product out to a large audience. It may seem like a system designed to stifle creativity, but in fact it encourages it - it’s one of the many paradoxes that you’ll find in Japan.
Gin Distilleries
Japanese gin distilleries pretty much run the gamut of what’s possible. Some are under the parenthood of a corporate giant, while others are defiantly craft affairs. In a similar way to what happens in Scotland, whisky distilleries often produce gin alongside their main product, as it is ready in much less time than the years it takes to age whisky. For example, Suntory’s Roku gin is probably the leading, internationally recognised gin from Japan. While it’s perhaps not a true craft, small-scale product, it is excellent and a great place to start.
KI NO BI distillery’s Kyoto dry gin, released in 2016, won awards (and a fair bit of hype) for its innovations. Produced from a rice base, giving it a distinct flavour to start with, there are also 11 featured botanicals, divided into six categories – base, citrus, tea, herbal, spice and floral – with each distilled separately before blending. It’s a balanced gin with plenty of citrus from yuzu, with other styles from the distillery worth your time too, including an Old Tom distilled with Okinawan black sugar.
Hokkaido’s Benizakura distillery runs small batches of 500 bottles or so, including an extraordinary array of local botanicals including shiso, kombu seaweed, dried daikon radish and shiitake mushroom. These gins have a very experimental, free-spirited quality, with adventurous umami flavours mingling with the traditional gin notes. If you can secure a bottle, it will likely be worth the trouble.
There are also many others spread throughout the islands. The Ethical Spirits Co. famously produced gin from surplus Budweiser beer during the 2020 pandemic, to great acclaim. Niigata prefecture is famous for its sake, so it makes sense that their gin is outstanding too, with distilleries such as Yaso103, who use an astonishing array of botanicals from their accompanying natural food branch, and Rokumoji, who make use of the local cypress tree. Miyazaki prefecture on Kyushu is also becoming famous for its gins, including the yuzu-flavoured variety created by Kyoya Shuzo (one of the few flavoured gins we can get behind), and the delicate Hinata gin. Hiroshima and Okinawa are two other centres for gin production, for example in Sakurao, which features oyster shells as a botanical note, or Masahiro, who use awamori as a starting point before adding tropical botanicals like bitter melon and guava leaves.
Our Inspiration
We’ve never made a secret of our affiliation to all things Japan. Our gins are distilled in England and take traditional recipes as a starting point, but make the most of Japanese flavours and sensibilities alongside. Our award-winning Aranami navy strength takes Japanese citrus, sanshō pepper and a post-distillation of cherry blossom as part of its sherberty, lighter-than-air flavour profile, as the bright notes give way to spicy undertones. Our London Dry, while ostensibly following the pattern of a British classic, uses Japanese citrus and Furano lavender from Hokkaido at key points in the process for their complex flavour notes.
We also love the cocktail culture in Japan, seeing that melding of tradition and modernity, of strict reserve and chaos, and find it truly inspiring. We think of our own pre-mixed cocktails in the same way, experimenting where we can while always staying true to the intention of the drink. Likewise, our gin works just as well in a G&T as in an elaborate serve, with the flavours able to bend but never break. There are simply endless touchpoints for us to explore in designing our recipes, and we love travelling back there to explore what new innovations might inspire us next.
Whether you’re exploring the flavours of Japan through our award-winning gin recipes, or sourcing a bottle of Japanese craft product directly from source, we highly recommend you try some of these attributes out for yourself. You might find a take on something you love that makes you see it differently, or discover something new entirely.
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