Find them before the world does.
Twenty years ago I left Japan for Britain, and married a Scotsman who loved whisky. I wanted him to taste the whisky of my own country, so I began taking him back to Japan with me. Not to the famous distilleries, but to the small family houses down quiet roads, many of them sake brewers for generations who had lately begun making whisky, gin and shochu of their own.
Most have never sold a bottle in Britain. They are too small for the big importers to notice, which is exactly why they are worth finding.
Spirits of Japan is twenty years of those friendships, brought to a table in Britain. It began at that table, with a few friends who kept asking where they could buy what we had just poured. Between us we know Japan, we know how to move things across the world, and we know how to build the thing you are reading now. So we stopped talking about it and started importing.
The best bottles we have ever tasted were small and almost gone: a few thousand, then none. That is the house we are looking for. I find them. A group of us bring them here. Members get the allocation. Then anyone who loved it can buy more.
Keiko