HY IT’S DIFFERENT
This Nine Leaves is part of an exceptional series from the distillery founded in 2013 by Yoshiharu Takeuchi in the Japanese city of Otsu.
At Nine Leaves, Yoshiharu did everything himself, from moving barrels to bottling; then, at the end of 2023, he decided to close the distillery. A few months later, the entire stock of ageing rums and the last batch of white rums were purchased by La Maison & Velier, who will carry on an extraordinary evolving legacy.
The raw material that makes up Nine Leaves rums is also exceptional: pure water from an underground spring and Kokuto sugar from the Okinawa archipelago. Fermentation takes about four days, while distillation takes place in two Forsyth’s Scottish pot stills: the first inspired by Chichibu and the second in Glenmorangie style, with a great balance that enhances the aromatic complexity. Once distilled, the rums are placed to age in different casks in two different locations: a warehouse subject to significant temperature fluctuations or an abandoned mine with high humidity and very low temperatures.
This rum, distilled in 2017 and matured in an ex-Bourbon cask, is one of the first five bottlings selected by La Maison & Velier, whose labels are inspired by a traditional card game: Unsun Karuta, dating back to the late 17th century, in the Edo period. Composed of 75 cards, the deck features the suits of cups, clubs, swords and deniers like the original but with a distinctly Japanese touch, plus a fifth, that of the guru, which uses the mitsudomoe, a typical abstract motif similar to the comma, as its symbol. The special feature of the deck is that it also has dragon cards, which have a different value depending on the game being played.
The nose of the ex-Bourbon version is fine and ethereal, buttressed by notes of sandalwood and eucalyptus. The aromatic palette opens with tropical fruits, toasted nuances and pralines and evolves into aromas of flowers, cane sugar and marshmallow. The mouth is clear and straightforward with skillfully combined notes of coconut, mandarin, apricot and toffee candy evolving into grassier flavors of ripe sugar cane and pepper. The finish is refined and persistent, with sugarcane honey gradually enveloping the taste buds – a rich sensation soon counterbalanced by more pungent hints of lemon, orange and apricot. The retro-nasal aromas combine vanilla, licorice and delicately grassy notes of tobacco.
