5 best Japanese rums you can buy right now

One of the OG brands in Japan's rum renaissance, Nine Leaves is a must-try. Perhaps most surprising for the distillery that helped kick off international interest in Japanese rum, Nine Leaves isn't based anywhere near Japan's tropical islands. Founder Yoshiharu Takeuchi started Nine Leaves as a passion project in 2013 and the distillery is based in Shiga Prefecture, close to the border with Kyoto. It's a true labour of love: Takeuchi makes all the rum himself, sometimes enlisting his family to help with the bottling.

Thanks to brown sugar from Okinawa and Takeuchi’s immaculate blending and ageing, Nine Leaves rums are known for their rich, fruity flavours. The best place to buy is from the official online shop. Angel's Half (pictured; ¥6,600) has remarkably rich flavour for a rum aged just six months. We love the Almost Spring series (¥6,875), which brings sticky raisin flavours to the fore, while the seasonal Encrypted bottles (¥8,800), the brand’s flagship series, are worth grabbing as soon as they come out.

This impressive label from Okinawan distillery Mizuho Shuzo aims to capture the essence of the archipelago's eight kokuto (brown sugar) producing islands. Each bottle in the series uses kokuto sugar from a different island to create a unique rum that reflects the terroir of that place. The Hateruma Island Rum (pictured), for instance, has a fresh, fruity taste with notes of coconut and peach.

Each release is limited to just 800 bottles, with new island rums planned to debut throughout 2022, so you’ll have to be quick to snap one up. Don’t despair, though – rare rum isn’t nearly as pricey as rare whisky. Bottles of OneRum typically sell for ¥3,000 to ¥4,000 each and you can order directly from Mizuho Shuzo. In 2023, the brand plans to release a blend made up of different rums from the Single Island series, which we hope will be a little less limited.

This gold rum from Kagoshima’s Amami Islands is like a trip to the tropics in a glass. The islands are more famous for their kokuto (brown sugar) shochu, a geographically protected spirit that’s been made from local sugar since the Edo period (1603-1867). Rurikakesu has been produced by kokuto shochu distillery Takaoka Jozo on Tokunoshima since 1979 and the company claims it’s Japan’s first gold rum.

The rum is aged for three years in oak barrels, giving it a golden sheen, and the brown sugar base gives the spirit a slightly burnt caramel note. Strong, sweet and funky – this is one you'll want to work your way up to sipping neat. It stands up beautifully in classic tropical drinks, but we suggest mixing it with a little yuzu juice, pineapple juice and soda for a perfect summer cooler. No need to jet off to Amami to pick up a bottle, either; you can find it in the Takaoka Jozo online store for ¥2,235 (900ml).

Another entry from Okinawa, Cor Cor has been making waves inside and outside Japan with its distinctive rums influenced by awamori brewing. There are two Cor Cor rums available, Red and Green, and they’re about as different from each other as the colours they’re named after. Cor Cor Red is a classic white rum made from molasses. It’s not aged and has no additives or colourings, as it’s intended to be a pure expression of the fermented molasses. What that adds up to is a somewhat spicy drink that makes a mean mojito.

Cor Cor Green is a rhum agricole style, meaning it’s made from sugar cane juice. Rhum agricole is typically punchier than a traditional molasses-based rum. That’s true here too, but if you’ve never tried rhum agricole before, Cor Cor Green is a great starting point. It’s fresh, herbaceous and a little citrusy – it’s unlike any other rum on this list. You can get each bottle for between ¥3,000 and ¥5,000 from the Cor Cor online shop.

Believe it or not, this white rum is technically made in Tokyo. It’s distilled on the tropical island of Hahajima, which is part of the Ogasawara Islands, one of Japan’s most remote territories. Even though it’s about 1,000km from the capital, the little archipelago is administratively part of Tokyo.

The rum, made from molasses derived from locally grown sugarcane, is one of the lesser known bottles on the list. It’s worth chasing down, though, because it’s got a distinctive slightly savoury flavour – a little salty and spiced, with cardamom and cinnamon notes in the mix as well. The distillery also makes a passion fruit liqueur and another rum called Mother that’s aged in bottles under the sea for a year. All three are available via the distillery’s website, where the Ogasawara Rum is a bargain at ¥2,200.