Ki No Bi Kyoto Gin (700 ml)

Ki No Bi — meaning 'the beauty of the seasons' — launched in 2016 as Kyoto Distillery's founding expression, the first dedicated gin distillery in Japan's ancient capital. The project was built around a single conviction: that Kyoto's identity could be distilled literally, not metaphorically.

The water source is foundational. Fushimi, Kyoto's famed sake-brewing district, sits above an aquifer of exceptionally soft, low-mineral groundwater — the same source that gives the city's sake its delicate texture. That softness carries directly into the spirit's mouthfeel.

Production method: botanicals are divided into six distinct flavour groups — Base, Citrus, Tea, Floral, Spice, and Herbal — each macerated and distilled separately in a copper pot still, then blended. Key botanicals include yuzu and hinoki cypress (citrus and wood groups), gyokuro green tea (tea group), and sansho pepper (spice group). The spirit is bottled at 45.7% ABV, non-chill-filtered, using a rice spirit base rather than the grain neutral standard in Western gin.

The rice-spirit base is the structural transgression: it introduces a faint umami-adjacent creaminess absent in wheat-based London Dry peers. Drink now; no aging upside.