A brand site that brings Japanese shochu to the Western bar

In Japanese belief, kami are the divine spirits that dwell in nature. The brand story rests on a legend: the spirit of sake rewards the samurai Hiroshi, who makes a respectful offering at a hidden shrine, with a shochu recipe. Because the word also echoes the Japanese for 'paper', the emblem is an origami fox head; the fox stands for the shrine's guardian spirit. The site takes this language from the bottle label: a dark green ground, a gold line-drawn fox and widely spaced headings.

The catalogue holds barley, rice and sweet potato shochu. Every product page gives tasting notes, recommended drinks and the target audience in the same layout. On Barley Shochu, for example, part of the grain is roasted in tea roasters; notes of coffee, cacao and toasted bread, an Old Fashioned and Manhattan recommendation and the 'whiskey or rum lovers' audience are spelled out on the page. The icon strip below shows that there are no additives, an average 25% alcohol content, that the first written record of shochu dates to 1559, and that 99% of shochu came from Kyushu and Okinawa in fiscal year 2020. The catalogue has no prices; because the brand sells to hospitality professionals, every page closes with the London address and the contact details of both founders.

The Shochu page is written for someone who has never tasted it. The history goes back to 1559, to words left by carpenters on the roof beams of a shrine in Kagoshima. It then covers around 50 possible base ingredients, the role of koji mould in unlocking sugars and how it differs from malting in whisky, how atmospheric and vacuum distillation shape the flavour, and bottling strengths between 25% and 45%.

The cocktails section holds six recipes: Japanese Coffee Martini, KAMI Hi, KAMIcilin, KAMI Coffeetini, KAMI Paloma and KAMI Adonis. Each recipe comes with measurements in millilitres and a photo from the brand's bar shoots; KAMI Paloma, for instance, is made with 50 ml barley shochu, 10 ml lime juice, 2 dashes of chocolate bitters and a grapefruit soda top. The section was added in 2026, and in August 2026 the site was refreshed with the brand's new photography.

Kami is made by Tensei Shuzo, a distillery producing honkaku shochu in Osaki, Kagoshima since 1901; the products page describes the distillery, the soft underground water of the Hishida area and its rice koji. The about page introduces the two founders: drinks entrepreneur Maxim Kassir and bartender, sake and shochu educator Francesco Braun. As a spirits site, it asks visitors to confirm they are over 18 before entering. The contact page lists the London address and both founders' email addresses.