Coussinet Inc. / reference desk
The information exists.
It is only written in Japanese.
Standards, label rules and house customs in Japan are documented somewhere public — and almost never in English.
One document at a time
This desk takes a single published standard and explains what it actually requires, what it does not, and how to check a claim yourself.
The document, not a summary
Every claim names the statute, the article or the industry code it comes from, and links to it. You can check us.
The limits, stated
Where a rule is voluntary rather than law, that is the most important sentence on the page — so it is written down, not implied.
A visible review date
Regulation moves. Each page carries the date its claims were last checked against the source, and the sources are monitored weekly.
Sake
Reading a Japanese sake label
Junmai, ginjo and daiginjo have exact production requirements. Read the rice-polishing number, ingredients and designation without turning them into a quality ranking.
Whisky
Reading a Japanese whisky label
What the words on the bottle establish, and what they are permitted to leave out. Sourced to the Liquor Tax Act, the National Tax Agency and the industry code.
- sourcing Buying whisky in Japan: the tax-free system changes on 1 November 2026 Japan is moving from tax-free-at-the-till to a refund collected at the airport. Separately, an aviation rule caps what you may fly home with and bans anything over 70% ABV outright. Both matter before you buy, not after.
- whisky labelling Age statements and grade words on Japanese whisky: which ones mean something A number of years on a Japanese whisky label has a defined meaning and refers to the youngest spirit in the blend. The English words printed beside it — deluxe, reserve, select — have no defined meaning at all, and the industry code says so explicitly.
- whisky labelling Single malt, blended, pure malt: what Japanese whisky type names permit Single malt has a real definition on a Japanese label. Blended has a wider one than you would expect — the industry glossary puts malt-and-grain blends and heavily alcohol-extended whisky under the same word.
- whisky labelling How to tell real Japanese whisky from a bottle that only looks Japanese The labelling standard that decides what may be called Japanese whisky is voluntary, not law. Here is what it requires, what the JSLMA mark means, and which words on a label tell you nothing at all.
- whisky labelling What a Japanese whisky back label must tell you, and what it never has to Japanese law requires five things on a bottle of whisky. An ingredient list is not one of them, and the word ウイスキー can legally be applied to a bottle that is nine-tenths added alcohol. Here is how to read the block of small print.
Tokyo
What a Tokyo bar may do
Charges, smoking, payment, licensing hours. The rules that decide what happens to you at the door and on the bill, none of which are published in English.
- bars Buying a bottle from a Tokyo bar: why the answer is usually no A bar can pour you a glass of something you will never find at home. Selling you the bottle is a different licence, and most bars do not hold it. The rule turns on where the drink will be consumed, not on what is in it.
- bars Paying in Tokyo bars: no law makes a bar take your card, and cash has one legal limit Japanese currency law says what counts as money, not who has to accept it. Bank of Japan notes are legal tender without limit and coins only twenty per denomination — and the government has confirmed it does not require any business to accept cash, which is the same reason none has to accept your card.
- bars Tokyo bars after midnight: the licence decides how dark the room may be A bar serving alcohol after midnight files a notification. A venue dimmer than ten lux, or seating you where you cannot be seen, or whose staff sit down with you, needs a licence instead — and a licensed venue must close at midnight. That is why the bar still pouring at two in the morning looks the way it does.
- bars Cover charges in Tokyo bars: why you cannot look the price up beforehand A Tokyo bar can add a cover charge, a seating fee, a small dish you did not order and a service percentage. Japanese law obliges a venue to display a tax-inclusive price only if it displays a price at all — which is the whole reason you cannot find out in advance.
- bars Smoking in Tokyo bars: the sign on the door tells you, and under-20s may be barred Tokyo bars are smoke-free in principle, but a transitional exemption still lets some allow smoking indoors. In Tokyo the exemption applies only to bars with no employees at all — and where the whole bar is a smoking room, nobody under 20 may enter.
See the bars themselves — what each one charges to sit down →
Worked example
The small print, one line at a time
Every bottle carries a boxed block on the back. It looks like an ingredient panel. It is a tax declaration, and the difference is worth money to you.
品目その他の表示
01 / 06
製造者 Manufacturer
The company liable for the tax. Not, on its own, evidence of who distilled the spirit — those can be different companies, and the label is not required to say so.
02 / 06
製造所所在地 Address of the production site
Where the bottling or blending was carried out. A Japanese address here does not establish that anything in the bottle was distilled in Japan.
03 / 06
内容量 Volume
The one figure on the panel that means exactly what it appears to mean.
04 / 06
品目 Tax category
A tax word, not a quality word. The category permits a bottle in which nine parts in ten are added neutral alcohol.
05 / 06
アルコール分 Alcohol content
Required. Note what is not required alongside it: nothing about maturation, cask or origin.
06 / 06
And that is the whole list
Alcoholic drinks are exempt from the ingredient, allergen and origin declarations that food carries. A producer may add them. None has to — so their absence tells you nothing at all.
The reference
Every term on the bottle, in one place
A thirteen-page reference that does what a 700-word page cannot: the full label vocabulary, term by term, with what each one establishes and what it never does.
Free decision tool
Can this bottle fly home?
Choose the strength band and check the five-litre ceiling before you reach the till. No account and nothing leaves your browser.