The Kyoto Distillery opened in 2016 in the Fushimi district of Kyoto — a neighbourhood that has produced sake for four centuries, where the mineral-rich subterranean water from the Fushimi aquifer flows beneath distilleries that predate modern Japan. The founders’ decision to locate a gin distillery in this context was not accidental. It was a statement: that Japanese craft gin would be defined not by imitation of the London dry tradition but by the particular character of Japanese ingredients, Japanese craft philosophy, and Japanese terroir.
Ki No Bi — “the beauty of the seasons” in Japanese — became the brand name and the conceptual framework. Within its first three years of production, it had achieved distribution in over thirty countries, won multiple international awards, and established a price point — approximately £45 to £65 per 70cl bottle depending on the expression — that positioned it firmly in the luxury tier while generating sufficient volume to sustain the operation. The Japanese craft gin category it helped create now encompasses dozens of producers and an expanding export market that shows no signs of saturation.
The Ki No Bi Philosophy
The Kyoto Distillery’s production approach begins with rice spirit — a neutral base distilled from local Fushimi sake rice rather than the wheat or grain spirits that underpin most European gins. This base brings a textural softness and slight sweetness that distinguishes Japanese gins even before botanical character is considered.
The distillery divides its eleven botanicals into six flavour categories: base (Hinoki wood chips, used to build a woody, resinous foundation), citrus (yuzu from Kyoto Prefecture and lemon), tea (gyokuro green tea, a high-shade-grown variety of exceptional quality), floral (bamboo and ginger), spice (sansho pepper, a Sichuan pepper relative with citrus and numbing heat characteristics), and herbal (Kinome leaves, the young shoots of the sansho plant). Each category is distilled separately before blending — a approach that allows precise control over the contribution of each botanical group and that would be impossible in a combined still charge.
The flagship Ki No Bi expression retails at approximately £55 in the UK market; the Ki No Bi Sei (a navy-strength variant at 54.5% ABV) at approximately £75; the seasonal Ki No Bi Sei The Green — released annually with botanical variations reflecting seasonal harvest — at £65 to £80. The distillery’s limited editions, including the Ki No Bi Ko (a single-pot still expression released in very limited quantities) and collaboration releases with Japanese craft producers, retail in the £80 to £200 range and frequently sell out through allocation.
Secondary market activity for Kyoto Distillery’s limited editions is modest relative to whisky but meaningful: Ki No Bi Ko releases have appeared at specialist UK retailers at 150% to 200% of original retail price, and the distillery’s collaboration expressions — including a release with Nikka in 2022 — achieved similar premiums.
Suntory’s Roku: Scale Meets Craft Credibility
Suntory’s entry into the Japanese craft gin category came in 2017 with Roku — named for the six uniquely Japanese botanicals at the expression’s heart: sakura (cherry blossom) flower and leaf, gyokuro tea, sansho pepper, yuzu peel, and Japanese ginger. Alongside conventional gin botanicals (juniper, coriander, angelica, cardamom, cinnamon, and bitter orange), these six Japanese additions create a botanical formula that is both genuinely distinctive and commercially legible to bartenders schooled in the Japanese cocktail tradition.
Roku’s success has been primarily on-trade: it is now a standard fixture in high-end cocktail bars in London, New York, Tokyo, and Singapore, positioned as the Japanese answer to Hendrick’s or Monkey 47 at the premium mixology tier. Retail pricing of approximately £35 to £42 positions it accessibly within the luxury gin category, making it a gateway product for consumers who then explore smaller Japanese producers.
As an investment, Roku is not the primary interest — volume production by a major spirits conglomerate does not create the scarcity that drives secondary markets. Its significance for the collector is relational: understanding Roku’s botanical vocabulary provides a reference framework for evaluating smaller producers, and the mainstream success of Roku has helped establish Japanese craft gin as a legitimate global category rather than a niche curiosity.
The Smaller Producers
Beyond Ki No Bi and Roku, a cohort of smaller Japanese distilleries has emerged with expressions that attract serious collector attention.
Wa Bi Gin, produced by Nichi Bei Spirits in a small Niigata distillery, uses locally grown botanicals including yuzu, sansho, Koshi shiso (a purple perilla variety specific to Niigata Prefecture), and Japanese cherry bark. Production volumes are small — typically 2,000 to 5,000 bottles per batch — and export distribution is managed through a small number of specialist importers. UK retail pricing is approximately £60 to £75 per bottle; secondary market premiums of 30% to 50% have been observed for specific out-of-production batches.
Nikka Coffey Gin, produced using Nikka’s distinctive Coffey still (a continuous still of a type rarely used for gin production globally), creates a botanical character unlike pot-still gins. The Coffey still’s efficiency extracts botanical compounds differently, resulting in a spirit with exceptional texture and what specialists describe as a “distilled” botanical quality — flavour integration rather than botanical pop. At approximately £55 to £75, it occupies the luxury tier without reaching collectible scarcity.
Hanabi, from the Gaiaflow Distilling Company in Shizuoka (also home to Shizuoka Distillery, which produces single malt whisky), takes a minimalist approach: three Japanese botanicals (Japanese pepper, shiso, citrus peel) alongside juniper, creating a gin that prioritises clarity over complexity. Its limited production and selective export distribution have generated waiting lists in some markets.
Why Japanese Craft Gin Commands Luxury Premiums
The premium that Japanese craft gin commands over European competitors of comparable quality — and Ki No Bi typically trades at 20% to 40% above European craft gins of similar production scale — reflects a combination of factors that investment-minded collectors should understand.
First, ingredient authenticity: gyokuro green tea retails for £200 to £500 per kilogram at the quality levels used in premium gin production. Yuzu, which cannot be grown commercially outside Japan and a few experimental plots in Spain and Portugal, must be sourced from Japanese agricultural cooperatives. These ingredient costs are real and translate into production costs that justify pricing.
Second, craft narrative: Japanese distillers have benefited from a broader cultural premium attached to Japanese craftsmanship — the concept of monozukuri (the art of making things) — that travels effectively across categories from automobiles to whisky to gin. Premium buyers in European and North American markets have demonstrated consistent willingness to pay a narrative premium for Japanese goods across luxury categories, and gin has benefited from that cultural capital.
Third, category novelty: Japanese craft gin is still early in its international market development. The asymmetry of information between producers who understand the category depth and casual buyers who encounter it through restaurant lists creates price points that may not yet fully reflect the quality ceiling the category can reach. For collectors, this asymmetry — if understood and acted upon — can represent access to future classics at present prices.
The Kyoto Distillery’s achievement in establishing Ki No Bi as a globally recognised luxury product within eight years of founding suggests that the category’s trajectory will continue upward. The question for collectors is which of the smaller current producers will achieve similar recognition — and whether their current allocation prices leave room for the returns that characterise the best early-stage spirits investments.
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