Okayama
Craft Gin
- Japan
- 50% ABV
- 500 ml
Classic dry
A Japanese craft gin from Okayama, bottled at 50% and built for it. Juniper leads clean and resinous, with a peppery heat that sits high on the palate. Water opens it: citrus peel, a dry cereal note from the base spirit, a long warm finish. Little sweetness, plenty of grip.
Serve
1:2 — the extra strength needs the dilution
Garnish — A wide strip of grapefruit peel
Cocktails
Martini
Cold, dry and close to neat spirit — the vermouth adds weight and a faint bitterness rather than much flavour of its own. The gin has nowhere to hide: juniper needs backbone here, and any softness in the botanicals shows up whole. Lemon oil sharpens the first sip and keeps it from going flat.
At 50% the Okayama holds its shape against vermouth and dilution, so the juniper stays sharp down to the last sip.
Negroni
Bitter first, then sweet: Campari's rind-and-root edge held up by the vermouth's dark, herbal sugar. The gin has to push through both, so juniper and a firm backbone read clearly where softer florals get buried. Stirred over ice, it drinks cold and slow, the orange peel lifting the bitterness.
At 50% with clean resinous juniper and almost no sweetness of its own, the Okayama cuts through Campari's sugar and root bitterness instead of being absorbed by it.
Pink Gin
Gin, cold and nearly neat, with bitters clinging to the glass rather than mixed through it. The aromatic spice sits on top — clove, cinnamon, a dry bitter edge — while the gin carries everything beneath. Nowhere to hide: juniper and weight have to hold the whole drink up.
This is a gin built to be drunk nearly neat — the peppery high-palate heat meets the angostura's clove and cinnamon, and the dry cereal note of the base spirit gives the glass something to stand on.
