LAODI Distillery Visit, Part 4: “What Alcohol Brings You Is Encounters with People” — Rum, Sugar Cane and Treasures in Laos

2026.10.05

In short: why has Ikuzo Inoue, founder of LAODI rum distillery in Laos, poured his heart into rum through so many hardships? The answer lies in a winery party in Nagano: “Making alcohol is about bringing people together.” Cutting sugar cane with fellow travellers, and a meal at a local diner in Vientiane with almost no money. The final part of my LAODI report by Mika Tanimoto, owner of Bar Little Happiness in Hiroshima, Japan.

LAODI Distillery Visit, Part 1: A reunion, a feast, and the beginning of a “miracle story”

LAODI Distillery Visit, Part 2: The “miracle licence” won in one week

LAODI Distillery Visit, Part 3: The wind President Obama brought

Alcohol is a place where people gather

— Bonds beyond position, connected by a single glass of rum —

There was something I had always wanted to know.

After succeeding in Japan, why did he choose to go to a foreign land, and how could he keep pouring his heart and soul into making rum through so many hardships?

LAODI’s founder, Mr. Inoue, calmly told me the answer he says he has only recently found.

A Shinshu sunset and a glass of wine

The answer lay in an experience at a winery in Nagano Prefecture, long before he started making rum.

At the time, Mr. Inoue became a member of a winery run by an essayist.

He scraped together the expensive membership fee from Hiroshima to attend a members-only party.

There, he saw something astonishing.

Sitting next to him were people from a glamorous world — famous actresses and announcers — people he would never cross paths with in everyday life.

At first he felt intimidated — “Someone like me, who can only speak Hiroshima and Bingo dialect…” — but once the party began, that anxiety vanished.

Everyone watched a beautiful sunset side by side, shared wine, and gathered around the food.

It was a purely joyful time, where position, titles and gender did not matter at all.

“So making alcohol means bringing people together.”

Mr. Inoue says he felt this very strongly at that moment.

Ten years later, when the party was held again, the faces had changed — but with one sip, everyone became friends again right away.

The preciousness of that kind of time became the driving force of Mr. Inoue’s rum-making.

“Alcohol is an interesting thing. It skips over position, gender, everything — it’s a place where people can meet people.”

Because he had this core, Mr. Inoue never wavered, even when facing the many hard trials of the early years.

Making alcohol was not just a business, but an act of creating “a place for meeting people.”

“Rum friends” all over the world

Today LAODI has spread its wings to the world, and at trade shows in Europe and elsewhere, Mr. Inoue meets rum makers from the islands of the Caribbean.

At first people are curious — “a Japanese man making rum in a place like that in Asia” — but as fellow “people who make rum,” they quickly become close, beyond the language barrier.

When the show is over, they exchange each other’s rums and deepen their friendship.

Meeting these “rum friends from all over the world” is another of Mr. Inoue’s treasures.

At the end of the journey

On this visit, I stood in the sugar cane fields with friends I had just met, cut sugar cane with my own hands, and tasted the fresh sweetness of the juice pressed powerfully right there.

Working up a sweat together, covered in mud, what I came to see was not just a production process,

but Mr. Inoue’s passion, clearing virgin forest with an indomitable spirit, and his strong bond with the local partner who supports him.

And the people who work here with pride, and the connections of those who cross the sea from Japan, drawn by his vision.

“Encounters are so important. Position, age, what you do — none of it matters.

The time you can spend saying ‘this is delicious’ over a drink is a treasure in life.”

Mr. Inoue’s words slipped into my heart, very warmly.

A treasure in life.

I realised it is not proof of an achievement or something with a shape, but an accumulation of “moments” spent laughing with someone.

Just one life.

How many more treasures like this will I meet?

When I think about that, rum becomes even more precious to me.

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A note to self: a local diner, almost no money

A note to self.

On the last day.

Someone was in trouble because they hadn’t exchanged enough money, so I exchanged some of mine for them — and then I ran short myself (in Laos, you can hardly use anything but the local currency).

But the time I spent with only a little money in hand was the most fun of all.

If I had had plenty of money left, I would probably have hopped on a tuk-tuk and wandered around town to kill time.

It was precisely because of that unreal situation that I found a meal at a place only locals would clearly go to.

The mother running the place seemed unable to read, so every time I handed her my phone with a translation app, she called her daughter from the back to check my order.

Even when letters and words didn’t get through, she tried so hard to understand what I meant — that unpretentious exchange.

“In the end, what alcohol brings you is encounters with people.”

It was the moment Mr. Inoue’s philosophy connected vividly with my own experience.

The time at that diner is one of the irreplaceable “treasures in life” that my connection with LAODI brought me.

And to the Little Happiness guest who kindly came along when I asked, “Would you like to come on this trip with me?”

Thank you so much.

Meeting you, too, is a precious treasure in my life.

…………………………….

When you tilt a glass of LAODI,

along with the wind of Laos, the “joy of people gathering and laughing together” that Mr. Inoue has protected for 20 years is surely there.

To your “treasures in life”……..🥃

“Whisky and rum taste even better when you touch the hearts of the people who make them.”

Every encounter is meant to be. Welcome to the world of Rum&Whisky.

[A note from Tanimoto] This article about LAODI distillery is based on my own visit, but it also includes some of my personal thoughts and interpretations. Please enjoy it as the musings of one rum lover.