Style & Law

Unlike London Dry Gin or Genever, "Japanese gin" isn't a legally protected style with fixed rules. There's no regulation dictating which botanicals or methods a gin from Japan must use. The name describes an origin and an ethos, not a category.

Legal rules only kick in once Ki No Bi or Roku are sold within the EU. Then EU Spirit Drinks Regulation 2019/787 applies. It requires a minimum of 37.5% ABV for anything labeled "gin" and demands that juniper dominate the flavor. Both gins meet this comfortably, with Ki No Bi at 45.7% ABV.

The stricter "London Gin" category requires that nothing be added after the second distillation except water, ethanol of the same quality, and at most 0.1 grams of sugar per liter. Ki No Bi's method—distilling six elements separately, then blending them—doesn't neatly satisfy this tight rule. That's why the distillery markets it simply as craft gin, not London gin.

Genever, the old juniper spirit from the Netherlands and Belgium with a minimum of 30% ABV, is protected as a designation of origin. It's virtually absent in Japan. Kyoto and Osaka represent a newer, freer idea of gin: European ground rules, Japanese ingredient list.

That freedom is part of the sales pitch. Established styles like Plymouth Gin are tied to a place and a fixed recipe. A craft gin from Kyoto, by contrast, can rethink its botanicals every season, as long as juniper and at least 37.5% ABV end up in the glass.