Kanegasaki Herb Distillery’s “Waka Itsuki” Paints an Iwate Spring
While working in the kitchen of a restaurant in Vancouver, he was given a simple directive by the Canadian owner: “Make cocktails using only natural ingredients.” Taking that instruction to heart, a young Japanese man went out and gathered thyme, rosemary, mint, and roses from the market, then made his own infusions and syrups by hand. What took root in his mind at that moment was a guiding philosophy: “a cocktail like a drinkable perfume.”
That bartender was Kazuma Oikawa, a Japan finalist in the 2019 DIAGEO WORLD CLASS JAPAN competition. When the pandemic derailed plans to open a new bar in Vancouver, he returned to his hometown of Kanegasaki in Iwate Prefecture. There, he renovated an old wooden building that had once been used as a rice mill by his father’s family and, together with designer Yuka Hayashi, founded K.S.P Inc. It marked the birth of the only distillery in Kanegasaki outside of traditional sake brewing.
The Choice Not to Own a Still
Making alcohol in an old wooden structure came with a major limitation: for fire safety reasons, it was impossible to install a still. The path toward creating something bright and aromatic like craft gin was closed off from the very beginning.
And yet, that very limitation ended up defining the distillery’s originality. Oikawa chose a meticulous, multi-stage infusion process: each botanical is infused separately in three to four stages, with every extract finished on its own before being blended together. Drink Planet, a trade magazine for the bar industry, called this design “layers of aroma.” It is neither the simultaneous maceration used in gin nor the decoction style of amaro, but a distinctly Japanese approach that preserves the character of each ingredient while harmonizing them into a cohesive whole.
“Itsuki”: Capturing the First Breath of a Spring Forest
In March 2022, the first releases in the series debuted simultaneously: the spring expression, Itsuki, and the autumn expression, Minori. The botanical structure of Itsuki is modeled after the forest’s three-layer composition. At the top are yuzu and hinoki cypress, bringing a vivid citrus lift and a clean woody aroma. At the heart are apple, basil, rose geranium, and fennel, evoking fresh greenery and the softness of new growth. At the base are burdock root and ginger, grounding the spirit with earthy depth, savory richness, and a lingering finish.
Where Western bitter liqueurs often rely on angelica root or gentian root to express the smell of the soil, Itsuki uses burdock to build a uniquely Japanese sense of earthy terroir and umami. Hinoki and yuzu conjure the spring forest, burdock evokes the earth, and apple and herbs suggest the first stirrings of life. The image is of a northeastern forest, locked in winter, slowly turning green with the snowmelt of spring—briefly sealed inside a glass.
From the Garden to the Glass
K.S.P’s philosophy extends beyond what goes into the bottle. Alongside cultivating around 50 varieties of herbs on its own farm, the company also runs a small-lot partnership program that purchases things like osmanthus blooming in local gardens, mugwort and ashitaba growing wild in backyard plots, and misshapen fruits and vegetables that farmers would otherwise have thrown away. Oikawa calls this “Yard-to-Glass.” It is a system through which the small town of Kanegasaki itself gradually dissolves into each bottle.
When you lift a chilled glass of Waka Itsuki in tropical Bangkok, what has been captured inside is not only the spring forest of Iwate. It also holds the time-intensive process of separate infusions born from the fire-safety limits of a wooden building; the choice of one bartender to build the town’s only distillery; and the quiet contributions of local residents bringing in plants from their own gardens. This distinct approach to capturing a Japanese spring forest in liquid form is now quietly beginning to bloom. (Mr. Bacchus)
This article is intended solely to explore the distillation-free craftsmanship and cultural heritage of Kanegasaki Yakuso Shuzo (K.S.P Co., Ltd.) and the Waka Itsuki brand, and does not aim to promote or encourage the consumption of alcohol. / บทความนี้จัดทำขึ้นเพื่อนำเสนอข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับศิลปะการผสมผสานสมุนไพรแบบไม่ผ่านการกลั่น และมรดกทางวัฒนธรรมของ Kanegasaki Yakuso Shuzo (K.S.P Co., Ltd.) และแบรนด์ Waka Itsuki เท่านั้น มิได้มีเจตนาเพื่อส่งเสริมหรือโฆษณาเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ สำหรับผู้มีอายุ 20 ปีขึ้นไป โปรดดื่มอย่างรับผิดชอบ