Micro-Minimum Distillery / Hachioji City “Hachioji Craft Liqueur”
Gold Award Winner at “THE ASIAN SPIRITS MASTERS 2025” “Hachioji Craft Liqueur”
Good food is best enjoyed with good drinks. A well-made spirit can enhance the flavors of a meal and deepen the overall dining experience. This series introduces makers and individuals in the Tama area who are devoted to producing quality alcoholic beverages—an important companion in the enjoyment of food.In this installment, we introduce Hachioji Craft Liqueur, a brand created by an active bartender based in Hachioji.
Liqueurs were originally treated as medicinal spirits in ancient Greece. Over time, they evolved into beverages of enjoyment, made by infusing fruits, herbs, nuts, flowers, and other ingredients.
Today, liqueurs offer an almost limitless range of aromas, colors, and flavors. In addition to the long-established European market, innovative products continue to emerge from new producers across Asia, resulting in countless varieties of liqueurs enjoyed around the world.
Within this world of craft liqueurs, an innovative creation now attracting global attention is being produced right here in the Tama area. That producer is Hachioji Craft Liqueur, a distillery founded in 2024 by an active bartender with deep expertise in cocktails. Remarkably, in only its second year of operation, the distillery earned a Gold Award in the liqueur category at a prestigious international spirits competition organized by The Spirits Business, a London-based industry magazine and media outlet specializing in alcoholic beverages.
The distillery is led by Satoru Shimamura, owner and bartender of Yoshuko, an authentic bar located in Misaki-cho, Hachioji. Operating under the concept of a “micro-minimum distillery,” production takes place in a single small apartment room. The space is equipped with three 200-liter stainless steel tanks, each about one meter tall, one compact still, and a food dryer used for drying ingredients. In this modest setting, liqueurs are produced in carefully controlled small batches.
Shimamura is a well-known and respected bartender in Hachioji. His focus turned to creating a liqueur using hops, a type of herb commonly associated with adding bitterness and aroma to beer, together with mulberries, the fruit of the mulberry tree, which is also a symbolic tree of Hachioji. In the late Edo period, Hachioji was known as Soto, or “the city of mulberries,” as mulberry fields spread across the area to support sericulture. Even today, the city of Hachioji continues to use the name Soto as a symbol of its history and identity.
Using mulberries and hops as the main ingredients, Shimamura created the craft liqueur “Mulberry & Hop 28%” in 2024, infused with a total of ten different herbs. The liqueur has been highly praised for its flavor, described as “fruity yet gently bitter, with hops adding rich nuances to the mulberry profile—complex and unusual, yet pleasantly balanced.”
The person most surprised by the Gold Award was Shimamura himself. He entered the competition with a lighthearted curiosity, wondering how his very first creation would be received. “Gaining this recognition gave me confidence in both my experience as a bartender running an authentic bar and in my ability to create liqueurs with my own distinctive taste. That was what made me happiest,” Shimamura says.
Since winning the Gold Award, inquiries have increased steadily. The Agency for Cultural Affairs and the City of Hachioji have granted permission for the use of the “Soto Monogatari” (Mulberry City Story) logo, part of Japan Heritage. The liqueur has also been selected as a return gift for Hachioji City’s hometown tax donation program. Local liquor stores, supermarkets, and convenience stores within Hachioji have cooperated in its distribution, with strong support from the city and local businesses. Restaurants and bars across Hachioji have begun offering original cocktails made with this liqueur and gin, and it is increasingly appreciated by spirits enthusiasts as a distinctive local gift from Hachioji.
Shimamura is also working with local farmers to cultivate hops and mulberries in the Hiyodori-yama area of Hachioji. While the ingredients are not yet sourced entirely from Hachioji, his goal is to eventually achieve 100% local production. Each batch yields only about 200 bottles, and the process from preparation to bottling takes approximately two weeks. Every step is carried out by Shimamura himself, carefully and by hand.
Though modest in scale, these efforts are gradually creating a wider ripple of interest. The company’s website introduces not only retail shops and restaurants that carry the products, but also suggested ways to enjoy the liqueur. For lovers of fine spirits and good food, taking a trip to Hachioji to experience this craft liqueur firsthand may be a journey well worth making.
| Facility Name | Hachioji Craft Liqueur |
|---|---|
| Address | Fuji Corpo 101, 99-8 Yorozu-cho, Hachioji City |
| Tel | +81-90-9246-3304 |
| Website | https://www.hatiouji-craft-liqueur.com/ * Please note that products are not sold at this location. They can be purchased through authorized retailers or online. |
