Sakurao Original Hiroshima Gin

Noobie Japanese Gin with a pro profile.

In 2018, Japan celebrated another founding of a distillery: Sakurao. It’s owned by Chugoku Jozo (founded exactly hundred years before), who you probably know for their Togouchi. Sakurao’s plan is to release Whiskies eventually, but meanwhile, they tasked their shiny stills with making Gin.

Their Dry Gin Original contains nine botanicals gathered exclusively in Hiroshima: navel orange, ginger, summer orange, Aka Shiso, yuzu, daidai, green tea and hinoki. Finely-tuned noses will catch a whiff of juniper as well. It doesn’t look like a list of usual suspects, does it? The jury at 2018 International Spirits Competition in Los Angeles was quite impressed, as they gave it the title of Best Gin of 2018. Exotic, exceptional, extraordinary. It will jazz up every cocktail, but you should mostly tipple it neat.