Haku Vodka

Most vodka is made from grain or potato. Haku is made from Japanese white rice, and you can taste the difference the moment it hits your tongue.

Haku means white, and it also means brilliant — which is the sort of double meaning Suntory enjoy. The rice is fermented using techniques borrowed from sake brewing, then distilled and filtered through bamboo charcoal. None of that is decoration. Rice carries a natural sweetness that grain simply does not, and the bamboo filtration polishes the spirit without stripping it back to nothing.

The nose is faint, as it should be: a whisper of steamed rice, a little melon. The palate is where it declares itself — soft, slightly sweet, with a texture closer to silk than water, and a long clean finish that dries out gently rather than burning. At 40% there is no rough edge anywhere.

If you have written vodka off as a spirit with nothing to say, this is the bottle that argues back. It also makes an unusually good Martini: the rice sweetness fills in where dry vermouth can leave a gap.

How to Serve

Straight from the freezer in a small chilled glass, or in a Martini stirred very cold with a lemon twist. It is wasted under tonic — give it something that lets the texture through.

Where to Drink It

The Connaught Bar, where the Martini trolley will do it justice. Murakami in Covent Garden for the Japanese list. Bar Lotus for a quiet one.

Food Pairings

Sashimi and oysters, without question. It also sits beautifully beside salted edamame or a plate of good cured ham.