Nine Leaves
By Velier
I could call Yoshiharu Takeuchi the least Japanese I have known, as well as the most Japanese I have known. He portrays all the cultural principles that underpin his country's culture and, at the same time, is a firework. To devote himself to Rum, he left the management of the family business that supplied Toyota. For years, he was the only worker, employee and manager at Nine Leaves: from receiving orders to moving the barrels in the warehouse, from fermentation to distillation, from putting in the barrels to applying the labels: he did it all. No one else ever came into his distillery to do the work. With the death of his father, he decided to take over the family's automotive business, thus ending the Nine Leaves project.
Overview
History
Nine Leaves rums are produced at a micro-distillery in Otsu - in Shiga prefecture, near Kyoto - on the shores of Lake Biwa. Yoshiharu Takeuchi opened his micro-distillery in 2013, after a two-year construction period. Takeuchi San is a descendant of an important family. In fact, the symbol found on his rum labels represents his family's coat of arms, consisting of nine bamboo leaves, hence the name 'nine leaves'.
Production method
Lhe water comes from a spring inside an old, disused mine. For fermentation, the distillery's founder and sole contributor Yoshisharu Takeuchi uses a particular strain of yeast, which is very rarely used. The distillation is discontinuous, in two steps, done in two stills built by Scottish Forsyths. It is aged for two years in virgin American oak barrels, in the special top of the Otsu area, warm in summer and cold in winter.
