Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness
It was raining lightly. Oshima-san stood at the still, took the first cut, held it to his nose, then put the tiniest amount on his tongue.
“59.5% now. A little low.”
He hadn’t checked the hydrometer yet. He already knew.
This is what 15 years at Ichiro’s Malt distillery looks like from the inside — a nose and palate calibrated to a precision that instruments can’t match. Oshima Kazuya spent those 15 years at Chichibu Distillery from the very beginning. He was there when there was nothing. He stayed until it had become one of the most celebrated craft whiskies in the world.
Now he is making rum. The brand is called Rainmaker.
The Story Behind the Name
Oshima-san grew up in Tokyo, in a family that ran a kappo restaurant in Aoyama. His grandfather carried a hip flask of whisky wherever he went. The young Oshima would breathe in the scent and think it was extraordinary. When his grandfather died, he finally learned the name: whisky. He was still in middle school. “I want to make that,” he thought.
His family’s financial difficulties meant working 60 hours a week through high school. He visited sake breweries on cheap travel passes during holidays. He enrolled in food science, worked toward wine, then spotted a newspaper article about Chichibu Distillery. He called immediately. He was refused four times. On the fifth attempt, they let him through the door.
Fifteen Years and a World-Famous Distillery
Oshima-san was at Chichibu from day one — there for the Card Series, there when Ichiro’s Malt went from unknown to internationally celebrated. He calls it “a dream stage.” After 15 years, he made his decision: build something of his own.
His choice was rum. Craft rum in Japan is almost nonexistent at a serious level — the opportunity to define what “Japanese craft rum” can mean is still open. His approach: fresh sugarcane juice, fermented immediately, distilled in the agricole tradition. Not molasses. Everything fresh.
The name “Rainmaker” comes from a pattern: whenever something significant began — the first distillation at Chichibu, the day he first walked through that door — it was raining. The day of our visit was a small rain too.
In a few years, Rainmaker will have its own distillery in Chichibu — the same town where Oshima-san spent 15 years mastering his craft. He’s going back. But this time as founder.
Bar Little Happiness will carry Rainmaker when it is released. Mika visited the test distillation in Kagawa — on a rainy day, of course.
Full Japanese story: little-happiness.jp/columns/rainmaker-rum/
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Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
Open Mon–Sat 7PM–12:30AM, Sun 7PM–midnight
No cover charge. Walk-ins welcome.
english.little-happiness.jp