Distilling Begins on a Rainy Day: “Rainmaker,” the Japanese Rum of Ichiro’s Malt Veteran Oshima-san

2026.10.05

In short: the story of Oshima-san, who spent 15 years at Ichiro’s Malt Chichibu Distillery and is now making his own Japanese rum, “Rainmaker” — from his grandfather’s hip flask of whisky and a hard youth, to phoning Chichibu four times until they let him in, to a trial distillation in Kagawa on a rainy day. His own rum distillery is planned in Chichibu. By Mika Tanimoto, owner of Bar Little Happiness in Hiroshima.

It was drizzling that day.

The wind beat against the warehouse walls, whistling.

Oshima-san was standing in front of the still.

He first checks the clear liquid flowing out by its aroma, then rolls just a tiny sip on his tongue.

“It’s 59.5% now. …A little low.”

Before even waiting for the meter, he already has a good idea of the strength.

He said he would measure again in ten minutes, and if it was still low, he would change the cut.

Drop the rough first part (the heads), drop the heavy last part (the tails), and scoop up only the clearest heart in the middle.

Where to make that cut.

A split-second decision determines the character of the rum before it even goes into the cask.

With a nose and tongue honed over many years, Oshima-san finds that boundary without hesitation.

“I envy you, being able to tell just by tasting.”

When I let that slip, Oshima-san laughed and shook his head.

“Bartenders who drink all kinds of bottles know the range far better.”

I felt I learned once again that true makers are the ones who are modest so lightly like this.

The name of the new rum Oshima-san is trying to create is “Rainmaker.”

Why that name?

The story goes back a long way.

A memory of aroma

Aoyama, Tokyo.

The kappo restaurant his parents ran is Oshima-san’s original landscape.

His mother also worked at his father’s restaurant, and little Oshima-san was always near the counter.

Steam rising from the pots, the season on the plates, and grown-ups laughing merrily as they tilted their glasses.

Delicious food, and delicious drinks.

He loved the happy atmosphere at the centre of it all, he says.

“Take this over there.”

Doted on by the grown-ups, he ran around helping.

Even washing up was somehow fun.

Alcohol is nice, isn’t it.

The very first small flame was lit in the bustle of this restaurant.

And beside him was always his grandfather.

Oshima-san, a grandpa’s boy, played with him more than anyone.

A stylish man who sipped whisky from a hip flask.

Little Oshima-san simply remembered the rising aroma as “what a nice smell.”

He learned what drink it was on the day his grandfather died.

When it came time to divide his keepsakes, he found out for the first time:

it had been whisky.

“I want to make this.”

Around the time he entered junior high school, Oshima-san thought that.

Dreams and reality

When Oshima-san was in his first year of junior high, his father fell ill.

So ill he could barely move.

By the time he entered high school, his mother’s health had also failed,

the family’s finances quickly became tight, and even going to high school was a struggle, he says.

He went to Tokyo Metropolitan Horticultural High School, a place to study horticulture and food science.

He couldn’t even afford a commuter pass, so he cycled an hour each way.

He weighed 48 kilograms at the time.

He juggled jobs at restaurants and in electrical work six days a week, and in summer earned money working with painters and plasterers, paving his road with his own feet.

Classmates opening their lunch boxes and sweating at club activities seemed dazzling to him, he says.

Lunch was discarded bento boxes and leftover staff meals.

Once a year, he travelled around Japan with friends on a Seishun 18 rail pass, visiting breweries in each region.

That was his greatest joy, he says.

…

But eventually, he realised:

companies that make spirits weren’t hiring.

Living in Tokyo, there was nowhere to learn about whisky.

So he decided to start from the closest thing: wine.

He went to a vocational school where he could study wine.

But he had to find the tuition fees himself.

School by day, night shifts by night.

From the night shift straight to school, sleeping just two hours in the smoking area.

Even so, he became so absorbed in the world of alcohol that he spent his money on learning — whisky, wine, shochu… — rather than on food.

Two years of days like that.

In the middle of it all, he was chosen for a winery training programme.

Standing on his first real production floor after all that, he became certain, he says:

“It’s as much fun as I imagined.”

To the distillery of his dreams

The turning point was one newspaper article.

In Chichibu, the Ichiro’s Malt distillery — later recognised by the world — was just about to be born.

As soon as he found the article, Oshima-san picked up the phone.

He was still a student.

“I don’t care about the salary, I just want to work there.”

He was turned down four times.

He still kept at it, and finally made it onto the floor.

Actually, I too was one of those who went in the early days, when Ichiro’s Malt was still unknown.

I fell in love with the cute Card Series and phoned liquor shops one after another: “Please hold all of them for me.”

In an era with hardly any online shopping, I must have been quite a strange customer, calling out of the blue (lol).

As a maker, and as a fan.

We were looking at the same distillery through different doors.

It feels strange that those two lines now meet as one.

Oshima-san spent 15 years at Ichiro’s Malt.

The young distillery’s journey began with days of patient endurance, he says.

Eventually the lighter, easy-drinking “White Label” was born, and many people could casually meet the taste of Ichiro’s Malt.

Its acclaim at international competitions soared.

Ichiro’s Malt became sought after all over the world.

But… this is just my own imagination, as someone who has faced running a business for 20 years and struggled with what an organisation is…

I think a production floor growing bigger probably isn’t something to celebrate unreservedly.

More people, more volume, keeping up with the speed the world demands.

In all that, how far can one person’s hands and feelings reach into each cask?

What could be done precisely because it was a small workshop, and what can be done precisely because it is a large organisation.

Between them, there must have been countless struggles and questions with no quick answers.

A small craft distillery climbing to become a world-famous maker.

Oshima-san witnessed all of those years — the light, and the road behind it.

Fifteen years on a floor where everything was made by hand, from a time when there was nothing — that is exactly what shaped Oshima-san’s nose, tongue and hands today.

And it was a place that Ichiro Akuto, a rare maker, built from nothing.

Being able to watch his back up close must have been an irreplaceable treasure for Oshima-san.

“It was the stage of my dreams.”

I can’t forget his profile as he looked back and said that.

To rum, and “Rainmaker”

While facing whisky, another dream kept smouldering in Oshima-san’s heart.

He wanted to make rum.

Precisely because so few people make it in Japan, there is potential, he thought.

In fact, from the day he knocked on Ichiro’s Malt’s door, Oshima-san had made a decision in his heart.

Someday he would go independent and make spirits with his own hands.

Those 15 years on the floor were also a long, long run-up for that day.

Along that road, he met Takeuchi-san, one of the pioneers of Japanese craft rum.

Oshima-san has a deep connection with Nine Leaves Distillery, where one person ran every process alone.

But that distillery has fulfilled its role, and its precious maturing rums are now in the hands of Velier, the renowned Italian house.

And at last, Oshima-san took his first step toward the independence he had long dreamed of.

His own distillery is still waiting to be built.

He is distilling in various places while waiting for that day.

In a few years, his own distillery will be completed in Chichibu, he says.

In Chichibu — home of Ichiro’s Malt, where a boy once phoned with a newspaper article clutched in his hand.

Returning to the land where his dream came true, this time to build his own castle.

Listening, my heart was pounding.

For his company logo, he chose the family crest handed down in his wife’s family.

Perhaps it carries his resolve to inherit, and to walk together with family.

And then, the brand name.

Whenever Oshima-san tries to start something, it always rains, he says.

The day he first distilled. The day he knocked on Ichiro’s Malt’s door.

The word “rainmaker” has several overlapping meanings.

A person who prays for rain.

Something that produces outstanding results.

And a capable person who leads others.

…

Like calling a blessed rain, a glass that fills someone’s thirsty heart.

Perhaps that wish is packed into the name.

Someday, this glass

This time, I heard Oshima-san would do a trial distillation at a borrowed distillery in Kagawa, and I joined him.

Come to think of it, that day too it drizzled from the morning, and the wind was oddly strong.

When he starts something, it really does rain, I thought, and laughed to myself.

By the time this rum is matured and released, his rum distillery in Chichibu may already have started.

I can’t wait for the day “Rainmaker” stands on the counter of Little Happiness.

When it does, I’d like to tell you the rest of this long story over a glass.

Even better if it’s a rainy day.

(A snapshot with the Japanese rum makers I joined at the distillery in Kagawa this time.)

[A note]

Oshima-san said that remembering the old days makes his heart ache.

I thought about not writing about his painful childhood experiences, but I wanted as many people as possible to know the story of this man, Oshima-san.

I only heard it bit by bit, asking all sorts of questions beside him while he distilled, with plenty of interruptions —

so why did Oshima-san’s story stay with me so much?

Putting this column together, there is something I feel once again.

Oshima-san had resolve, and trust in himself.

An unwavering strength, backed by overwhelming knowledge and experience.

I think he has swallowed more frustration than I can imagine, and still walked all this way without letting go of the one thing that mattered.

I may have made him dig up painful memories.

Still, I believe he told me because he is no longer beaten by his past.

So I write it here.

Because a drink whose story you know will surely taste even better.

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

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

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🔗 Related links

A letter to a lost rum — what Nine Leaves Rum Distillery left behind

Ichiro’s Malt 20th Anniversary Bottle: legendary spirit and the love of its storytellers

Welcome to a new era: the new “Ichiro’s Malt Chichibu Double Distilleries” explained

A whisky pilgrimage: floor malting at Chichibu Distillery

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