Haku Japanese Vodka

Haku Vodka from The House of Suntory is distilled from hakumai - Japanese white rice - with the word `haku` meaning `white` in Japanese, reflecting the clear and clean vodka, which is twice distilled and filtered through bamboo charcoal. Rice spirits have been made at distilleries across Japan for more than 400 years. The arrival of the pot still on the Japanese archipelago dovetailed neatly with the established culture of sake brewing to create shochu. Various types of this traditional spirit are produced today, some based on barley or sweet potato, but the most common variety is made from rice. In developing Haku, Suntory’s distillers drew inspiration from both shochu and sake to creating a modern vodka using age-old techniques. Haku begins with Japanese white rice, milled and inoculated with koji cultures – the same microscopic fungi used in sake breweries to prepare rice for fermentation. After distillation using a combination of pot and column stills, the newly made vodka is filtered through bamboo charcoal to ensure purity. The resulting spirit is clean and slightly floral with balanced sweetness. Complex and aromatic, with an almost botanical character. Cardamom, bitter lemon, and mint leaves meet mango sticky rice and resinous tree sap, with lingering sweet peppermint finish.