Marcin Miller reveals details of Japan distillery

Kyoto Distillery co-founder Marcin Miller explains why the time is ripe for the production of a 100% Japanese gin – and details the “enormous commitment” of setting up a distillery in the country.

Kyoto Distillery co-founder, Marcin Miller

*This feature was initially published in the January 2016 issue of The Spirits Business magazine

The term ‘first’ is often bandied about with abandon in the spirits world, but when news broke in November 2015 that the duo behind Number One Drinks – the company responsible for the rise of noted Japanese whisky Karuizawa – was to build a brand new artisan gin distillery in the country, it raised eyebrows. It also marked a shift in strategy for founders Marcin Miller and David Croll.

With the first of two CARL stills set to arrive in January, The Kyoto Distillery is the first of its kind on the island. Alex Davies, former distiller at Chase and Cotswolds distilleries, has been recruited to head up the gin inception and production, with assistant distiller Yoichi Motoki also on board.

“Our plan is simply to make the finest gin possible with a focus on Japanese botanicals,” said Croll as the announcement was made. “We realise that there are plenty of new entrants in the gin category but are confident that, by offering an exceptional spirit with a genuine point of difference, we will attract discerning consumers.”

Miller, partner and rectifier in his new Kyoto Distillery role, echoed this assurance when we chatted over coffee in December, three weeks after the announcement. His love affair with Japan started in 1999, when, as founding publisher of Whisky magazine, he ventured to Tokyo to arrange for the title to be translated into Japanese.

“I wasn’t quite sure what to expect,” he recalls. “Tokyo was quite obscure to a lot of Westerners – ignorant Westerners like myself. It’s a beguiling place, genuinely beguiling. As soon as I got there I thought ‘this is fascinating’.”

A whisky ally

Tokyo is where he met David Croll, the man who has since become a close business ally. The former financier with a long-time penchant for whisky set up his own distribution business, before teaming up with Miller in 2006 to found Number One Drinks.

The pair started buying Karuizawa casks for bottling and export circa 2007. “It sort of started as a sideline,” outlined Miller in his typically self-deprecating manner. “We thought, we love these whiskies, we really want people to know about them, we’ll make a few quid. But that really wasn’t the sort of driving force behind the thought.”

He recalls one tasting session when, out of 69 casks, he wanted to bottle 68 on the spot. “[They] were like ‘Oh my God’. And that was sort of a blinding moment where… it was almost like Spinal Tap where I almost turned up to eleven. It was terribly exciting.”

After one particular meeting, it became apparent to Miller and Croll that the Karuizawa distillery had, in fact, ceased production. “That sort of information isn’t forthcoming, and that isn’t peculiar for that company. In Japan, things don’t necessarily get talked about, or advertised, or volunteered as information; you have to ask the right question to the right person in the right manner on the right day,” says Miller.

Yet, he clearly did ask the right question on the right day. After an offer from Miller and Croll to buy the closed distillery was turned down, he immediately proposed a deal to acquire the entire Karuizawa stash. The rest is liquid history in more ways than one. In August, a bottle of 1960 Karuizawa fetched HK$918,750 (£77,000) at an auction in Hong Kong, setting a new world record.

Alex Davies, head distiller at The Kyoto Distillery

The move to gin

But the heady days of Japanese whisky could be drawing to a close, a factor which Miller says was a push towards pursuing the new gin endeavour. “Firstly, there was less and less Japanese whisky. Age statements are disappearing, the success of the highball has perhaps reduced some of the Suntory stocks, Karuizawa is now down to its last however-many casks, and the retail prices and auction prices are extraordinary,” he acknowledges.

A second reason is the perhaps surprise synergy between whisky and gin. “It became apparent to me quite early on in the days of Whisky magazine that actually people who like whisky, and even people within the whisky industry, will drink gin and tonic before lunch. I’d go to boardrooms in Scotland and just before lunch they’d bring out the gins, and I thought, ‘this is exciting’.

“And maybe it’s because it’s an upper, maybe because it’s more uplifting, whatever the reasons are. But I think undoubtedly gin having a moment now is because it is about flavour. And whisky is about flavour. So it’s not that mad to look at correlations between the two.”

Eagle-eyed gin fans will note that while The Kyoto Distillery is perhaps the first of its kind based in Japan, the link between the country and the spirit is not a new one. Miller reels off a number of anecdotes, from Dave Broom arriving in Norwich with a bottle of Cambridge Distillery Japanese Gin, to other industry faces noting a potential gap in the market.

For Miller, this is good news. “I always feel if people are talking about it, people are doing it, it actually gives me confidence. I never feel, ‘Oh I need to be the only one’.”

The gins themselves will be informed and developed in line with local market consumption patterns. Prototypes are already in development, he says.

“We’ve done some sort of test distilling of single botanicals and a secret location. We macerated overnight yellow yuzu, green yuzu, sudachi – which is another citrus fruit – wasabi, chilli, ginger, green tea, black tea… and distilled them in the morning, single distillates, and it’s fascinating.”

He stresses that this list is in no way a final recipe; instead the team are playing with “elements that you could bring into a gin”.

100% Japanese

While juniper will initially be imported, the eventual ambition is that the gin recipe will comprise 100% Japanese ingredients. As a happy coincidence, the man renting the distillery space to the team is a farmer, and discussions to potentially grow juniper on-site are under way, Miller confirms.

“We want it to be as Japanese as possible. We’ve got a really good water source, we’ve got some great botanicals, but I don’t think one would sacrifice quality over principle. You probably can acquire some juniper in Japan, but at the moment it might not be good enough. So we need to be led by quality.”

The team will also buy in spirit from a Japanese supplier. Interestingly, rice is the base used. While Miller confesses to being initially “dubious”, in testing “it came over really well. The mouthfeel is fantastic”.

Gin, like many ‘foreign’ white spirits in Asia, is still at a fledgling stage. The Japanese off-trade is “very, very limited” for the category, admits Miller, “so we might need to look at how we can address that”. The greatest potential lies in a domestic bar and restaurant scene buzzing with genuine innovation.

“Gin is seen as being either a gin and tonic, or a workhorse white spirit in a range of cocktails,” Miller says. The plan, he continues, is to open proceedings with two distinct expressions, each of different strengths, to fit each occasion. It sounds simple, but bartenders here are serious about their serves.

“The last time I was in Japan a year-and-a-half ago, I went to a well known bar run by one of the great barmen and I had a Negroni. And he said: ‘There’s frozen Beefeater, there’s room temperature Beefeater and there’s chilled Gordon’s’. The point I’m trying to make is that the approach is so… is genuinely scientific. Maybe it’s creative, maybe its where art meets science, maybe that’s why Japanese whisky does so well. So it’s fascinating.”

Chureito Peace Pagoda, built on a hilltop facing Mount Fuji

Big commitment

While the distillery itself purports to focus on function over form – “It’s basically a light industrial estate!” Miller jokes – the initial solitary 180- litre still is set to be joined by a 450-litre sister in May, bolstering capacity to around 20,000 cases per year. Certainly small enough to be considered ‘artisan’ – but why haven’t more spirit enthusiasts set up shop in Japan?

“You have to be enormously committed,” Miller says. “The way it works in Japan is that you don’t get your final licence until everything is built, set up and ready to go, and you’re about to press the button. They could [say no], but we’ve been in constant communication with them, and we’ve been managing them, so we’ll see. But I think that’s one of the reasons there aren’t a hundred young people with beards distilling, because it’s quite a big commitment, as you can imagine.”

He contrasts the position he and Croll are in with the “23-year-old hipsters who want to be craft distillers”, a growing breed in Europe and the US. “It’s different for David and I being slightly older and seeing this as a proper investment, with the full meaning of that.”

It’s a caricature that fits with the ubiquity of the word ‘craft’ in spirits marketing. Does the word have any meaningful resonance at The Kyoto Distillery?

“I think David would use that word. And I don’t mean that negatively; I think that’s a word he would use comfortably in that context,” muses Miller. “Would I use it? Probably not. I mean, if Johnnie Walker is a ‘craft’ whisky… I don’t think we’re going to… I don’t think 20 million cases is in our plans.”

He reckons the craft movement in Japan is generally “behind” the US and Europe, “but as to where it will end up, I don’t know”. Craft beer is “gaining real traction”, he notes, but the link between that and an emerging trend in local spirits is currently a weak one.

Plan of action

But what’s first on the agenda for the distillery, and when will the first gins be ready? “Well, Alex starts work on 9 January. He and Yoichi will build up a library of single botanical samples, and they will get to work on some test formulations.” These are due to be ready in time for Miller’s next visit to the distillery in March – licence pending.

“Subject to all the imponderables, [the plan] is to launch at the Tokyo International Bar Show in May. In my mind we do launch at Tokyo in May and probably do a European launch at Whisky Live Paris in September. That’s what our plan is, but subject as I say to the vagaries of real life.”

The question on everybody’s lips is surely, after all of Miller’s work with whisky, will he be tempted to put some liquid in a cask to see what might happen?

“Yeah, I think we might have some casks that would be suitable for that kind of thing, maybe…” he hints. “Yeah, I think we might have some whisky casks. I can’t say too much on that, but yeah. It would be silly not to. I think people would expect it from us.”

While Miller and Croll might be focusing on the Japanese gin, it’s clear plans for The Kyoto Distillery run far deeper than that.