Nine Leaves began this 2020 Japanese rum with black sugar, or kokuto, before ageing it for five years in two 400-litre ex-Pedro Ximénez sherry casks. The two-cask small batch was bottled at 59% ABV.

The black-sugar base gives the spirit a distinctly Japanese raw-material identity before the sherry casks enter the picture. Over five years, the large PX casks become the defining maturation element without obscuring where the rum began.

The outturn was 929 bottles, reflecting the compact scale of a composed two-cask batch presented at full strength rather than a single-cask bottling.