Ryoma 7 Year Old Japanese Rum 40%

Ryoma 7 Year Old Japanese Rum is made at the Kikusui Distillery which is located some 180 miles to the south west of Osaka in the south of the archipelago on the island of Shikoku in the village Kuroshio in the Kochi prefecture. The region around the village of Kuroshio is known as the oldest, and once the largest, producer of sugar cane in Japan.

Ryoma 7 Year Old Japanese Rum is made very much in the style of a “rhum agricole“, rums typical of the French speaking Caribbean made from the juice from freshly pressed sugar cane rather than the more common molasses base. The sugar cane is pressed, the juice is then fermented to make a lightly alcoholic liquid which is then distilled to produced the spirit. Distillation is in pot stills using two different kinds of yeast. After distillation Ryoma 7 Year Old Japanese Rum is aged for 7 years in oak barrels which includes 2 year sin casks that have held sake. Agricole rums tend to be a lighter, more floral, herbaceous style of rum. There is no caramel added to the rum for either colour or sweetening purposes (a bit like the Mezan range of rums) which means the rum is a lighter, more frangrant and drier style than some people may be used to.

The rum is named after the Sakamoto Ryoma who was a prominent Japanese figure in the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate during the Bakumatsu period.