Born in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture!
A craft gin distillery like a museum.
<Part 1.

Echigo Yakuso Distillery, which opened in Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture, last October, is a museum-like distillery with a gallery space inside the distillery to display contemporary artworks.This month, we report on the gin-making process at Echigo Yakuso Distillery.

writer：Ryoko Kuraishi

THE HERBALIST YASO GIN is a classic.The various botanicals that create the fragrance are divided into seven parts, each with a different distillation method to maximise the aroma.

Capturing the world of wildflowers as art.

THE HERBALIST YASO is a craft gin brand founded by wild herb professionals.

The makers of this brand are Niigata-based craft spirits distillery Echigo Yakuso Distillery.

Based in Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture, Echigo Yakuso has been developing and producing enzyme drinks and fermented foods using local wild plants.

The company's most representative product is a wild herbal enzyme drink, and the development of spirits began when the alcohol produced during its manufacture caught the company's attention.

The Echigo Herbal Distillery, which was established as the distillation base for THE HERBALIST YASO, is based on the unique concept that the world of wildflowers and fermentation should be experienced as a form of art.

Let's start with a tour of the distillery.

The lab floor is located on the third floor of the distillery and features a 360° panoramic view.Enjoy gin pairings with dishes that make the most of local ingredients.

The distillery is divided into three floors according to theme.

The first floor is the factory floor, where the distillation equipment is located and visitors can watch the distillation process.

The second floor is an open space, the art gallery floor, where artworks on the theme of plants and fermentation are on display.

The third floor is the Labo floor, where visitors can enjoy a 360° panoramic view of the Joetsu landscape and enjoy pairing gin with dishes made from local ingredients.


The star of the show is a gin named 'YASO'.

The name is a combination of the word 'wild herbs' and '80' (yaso), which refers to the 80 plants used as ingredients.

Extract the components of various wild plants with the unique knowledge of a pioneer in wild herbal enzymes.

We want to make use of alcohol, a by-product of enzyme drinks!

Joetsu City is one of the country's leading producers of mugwort, a typical Japanese herb.

The difference in temperature between hot and humid summers and cold and humid winters, as well as the heavy snowfall, has long led to the development of a fermentation culture, and the city has been known as a 'fermentation place'.

In Joetsu, we have been researching, developing and manufacturing our own products that combine wild herbs and fermentation, which is a characteristic of the region, for 40 years.

Mr Kazushi Tsukada, the company's representative, says so.

Our wild herbal enzyme drinks are made by fermenting and maturing extracts of 80 different ingredients, including locally grown mugwort, horsetail, dokudami, seaweed and fruit.

The fermentation process involves the action of micro-organisms such as yeast and lactic acid bacteria, the by-product of which is the production of dozens of tonnes of alcohol per year.

Since wild herbal enzyme drinks are soft drinks, the alcohol produced must be dissipated, so until now we have used a distiller to release it into the air."

Representative, Mr Tsukada.

'Alcohol is unnecessary for soft drinks, but it is a by-product of nature's bounty, so we began to wonder if we could make good use of it in a way that was unique to 'Echigo Yakuso'.

That is how we arrived at the idea of craft spirits.

However, Mr Tsukada himself was not a drinker and had never tasted gin or spirits before.

He says: "So at first we didn't intend to manufacture them ourselves, but thought of supplying them to brewers as raw materials.

However, negotiations with the suppliers were not going well, so we decided to try it ourselves and obtained a spirits production licence for the time being.

Some craft brewers buy base spirits from overseas and redistill them.

We can produce our own base spirits, just like a brewery.We thought that would be another selling point."

Wild herb extract fermented and matured in ceramic jars made in Jiangsu, China.The extract is concentrated with the power of the wild herbs and also produces a mild richness and umami.This extract is the raw material for THE HERBALIST YASO.

When we researched to see what forms of use alcohol could have, we found that gin was linked to the keyword '80 wild herbs' in the enzyme drink.

Further research revealed that as long as it contains juniper berries, it can call itself 'gin', which means that it is extremely diverse in terms of taste and ingredients.

Take, for example, Monkey 47, which Mr Tsukada was "struck by its complex flavour and clear aroma".

Tsukada says: "There is no benchmark for the kind of gin we are aiming for, but the fact that there are so many unique gins out there was encouraging."

Intrigued by the high degree of freedom and depth of feeling that gin has, he decided that he wanted to make a gin that emphasised the unique character of the Joetsu region.

'We wanted to develop our own unique character in the world of gin, which is too free.'


Continued in Part 2.