The options are endless when you’re looking for the best bottle of Rice Vodka.
You’ll find plenty of top-shelf options, one more expensive than the next. But what you won’t find a guide to really help you break down and understand which brand of Rice Vodka you never knew you wanted.
This is that guide.
Rice Vodka might not be your first choice for an on-the-rocks sipper.
But on this list, you’ll find absolutely divine flavors and you will learn to enjoy Rice Vodka like you never have before.
And of course, if you prefer a nice cocktail instead, our recommendations will work brilliantly with all your favorite mixes.
Below, you’ll find our list for the top brands in the world and a buyer’s guide to Rice Vodka as well as answers to how it’s made and what types are there.
Finally, we’ll round off this article with tips on how to drink and really enjoy Rice Vodka as well as the key tasting notes and vocabulary you’ll need to become a true aficionado.
Best Rice Vodka Brands to Savor
Here’s a list of top 5 Rice Vodka brands you can buy. We have also explained other brands that offer Rice vodkas to try.
| Rank | Brand | Best for |
| 1 | AO | Best Overall |
| 2 | Kai | Best High-End Option |
| 3 | J.T. Melleck | Best Value |
| 4 | Haku | Best for Brand Prestige |
| 5 | Okuhida | Most Easy to Drink |
The following is the list of some of the best Rice Vodka brands in the world:
Haku
Haku is a Japanese craft vodka made with 100% Japanese white rice. The word Haku means ‘white’ in Japanese. It can also mean brilliant.
The legendary Beam Suntory brand crafts this rice vodka. They make clean and luminous vodka with unparalleled softness and sweet taste.
This premium Japanese vodka is known to be the best drink crafted by the brand, which acts as a tribute to the Japanese craft of making high liquids with rice.
The company uses a unique bamboo charcoal filtration process to filter the vodka and create a subtle sweetness and smoothness to the drink.
They packed this vodka in a traditional Japanese glass bottle with Japanese white rice paper, also known as Washi paper, where the word “Haku” is written in calligraphy ink in red and gold colors.
Haku Japanese rice vodka has soft floral aromas and a rich taste of rice that gives a smooth finish with a sophisticated sweetness lingering on the tongue.
Vinn
Vinn Vodka is the first rice vodka that is produced and bottled in an Oregon-based distillery in the United States of America. This is gluten-free handcrafted rice crafted using a 7th-generation family recipe and modern technology.
The distillery uses non-GMO rice-based products to craft smooth-tasting vodka. The company was started by a Ly, a Chinese family who had ancestors back in China and Vietnam.
This is a creamy and clean vodka that gives a lightly sweet finish. It is produced in small batches from scratch, making it one of the highest quality rice vodkas made in the United States.
JT Meleck Louisiana
This is one of the popular rice vodkas made with Louisiana rice grown on the distillery’s farm. This farm-to-bottle vodka uses local rice grains to create a smooth-tasting vodka.
The company was started by J.T.Meleck, a rice grower who has been growing rice in Louisiana for over four generations.
However, it was Micheal Fruge’s family’s idea to craft a spirit from rice. He continued producing vodka out of rice since 1896, following his great-great-uncle, J.T. Meleck.
The brand uses Fruge’s rice, yeast, and sugar and distills it in the four columns still, where the fermented rice is transformed into liquor.
The rice grains are harvested, distilled, and bottled in the distillery. As a result, this transparent vodka has a creamy, viscous mouthfeel and sake-like rice flavors.
Kai
Kai is one of the prominent rice vodkas that comes from the Red River delta region of Northern Vietnam. This is the first ultra-premium rice vodka that is imported from Vietnam to the United States. The yellow blossom rice gives the drink a subtle, delicate sweetness and complexity.
This gluten-free vodka is distilled 5 times from the exotic yellow blossom rice. It is crafted by a female master distiller using a 600-year-old recipe.
The spirit is distilled three times a twice in a column and pot still where the distilled spirit is blended with water sourced from a 1500-feet deep artesian well.
The clear transparent vodka has a heavier body with a wonderful bright appearance. It has wonderful aromas of orange blossoms and vanilla that give some mild creamy finish to the drink.
The brand also makes flavored vodkas from rice. Kai Lemongrass Vodka is an exotic drink that is made from yellow blossom rice using traditional fermentation and modern distillation process. It has a bright fragrance and flavors of lemongrass.
Kai Lychee rice gluten-free vodka is a flavored vodka made using yellow blossom rice cultivated in the Red River delta in Vietnam. This tasteless vodka is infused with southeast Asian lychee fruits.
It has wonderful lychee aromas and notes of spice, rose, and honey. Its palate includes sweetness from natural lychees and hints of rose and orange blossom that give the drink a sweet and refreshing finish.
Smoke Lab
Smoke Lab is one of the best rice vodkas made from basmati rice and pure Himalayan spring water. The largest distillery in India, the NV group crafts it.
Basmati rice is an indigenous crop that belongs to this country, where about 70% of the world’s basmati rice production is from India. Basmati stands for fragrance in Sanskrit, where these types of rice crops are grown in the foothills of the Himalayas in the Northern part of the country.
This Gluten-free and vegan vodka is manufactured in one batch at a time in a state-of-the-art distillery. The spirit is distilled 5 times using an ultra-modern distillation process and filtered in a versatile charcoal filtration to remove the impurities. There is an additional filtration process using silver.
The brand produces two variants: Smoke Lab Classic and Smoke Lab Aniseed Vodkas. This is a zero-carbon footprint and zero waste company because it makes its vodka in a sustainable process.
Smoke Lab Vodka has a distinctive nutty flavor and unique floral aroma from the basmati rice, giving the drink a fresh citrus finish.
The brand also makes Smoke Lab Aniseed Vodka, which has wonderful fennel and licorice notes that give a creamy sweetness and floral blossom finish to the drink.
Kissui
Kissui rice vodka is a Japanese vodka produced with rice and natural spring water sourced from Kyoto only. This vodka is distilled and bottled by Takara Shuzo in Kyoto, Japan.
This is a luxury vodka that has a clean appearance with extreme purity. It is distilled from only the finest rice grains in Japan and blended with the natural spring water from the Fushimi region.
It has a smooth taste because it is crafted using a unique distillation process known as super-allospas. This technique helps in removing impurities and creating extremely clean vodka.
Avinaa
Avinaa is a top-quality rice vodka that is made in Vietnam. This vodka comes with a lifetime shelf life.
The product is created using clean and natural resources. The company uses fragrant white rice grains of the North Red River delta region.
The distilled spirit is blended with fresh, pure natural water sourced from a depth of over 200 meters from the ground. The water has the freshest taste because it is purified through a special 10-level filtration system.
Bedlam
Bedlam Vodka is a naturally gluten-free drink that is made using long grain rice at the distillery in North Carolina.
The brand has perfected the recipe for over 7 centuries in Bedlam, Ireland. The company combines the century-old recipe with the latest technology to produce a unique rice-based vodka.
It has a smooth and unique taste that is light on the nose and a complex palate that gives a great drinking experience. It is extremely smooth and doesn’t burn.
AO
AO is a Japanese rice vodka that is made with rice and crystal-clear water sourced from a volcanic region. One of the oldest distilling companies in Japan, Beam Suntory, produces it.
This vodka is distilled from Japanese rice, where the Japanese word AO describes the blue-green colors of the fertile paddy fields. The pot-distilled spirit is blended with pristine water from the volcanic island of Kyushu.
This transparent vodka has a unique softness and crisp flavors with subtle rice notes. The spirit is filtered through a bamboo filtration process to achieve crystalline clarity and purity. As a result, it has a smooth, creamy texture that gives a sweet finish to the drink with the rich vanilla aftertaste.
Magic Moments
Magic Moments is one of the finest premium vodkas, which are produced from long-grain rice in a triple distilling process for smoothness and purity. It is a gluten-free product.
This is a premium vodka that was launched in 2006 in India. It was introduced into the market by one of India’s oldest and largest liquor manufacturers, Radico Khaitan.
It is one of India’s fastest-growing vodkas, which has received a gold medal for quality at Monde Selection in Belgium. This vodka is packed in a tall frosted bottle with a clear guitar-shaped window.
Apart from the classic, the brand also produces six flavored vodkas, including orange, green apple, lemon, raspberry, chocolate, lemongrass, and ginger.
Ukiyo
The term “Ukiyo” refers to the ‘floating world’ in the Japanese language. This is one of the best Japanese rice vodkas that was crafted using traditional Japanese craftsmanship. The Kirker Greer Spirits brand produces this.
It is one of the traditional Japanese vodkas which has a pure taste because it is made using the conventional distillation techniques perfected over the generations in Japan.
This vodka has its origin in the tropical Islands of Okinawa in Japan, where rice is the staple ingredient. It is distilled using the Japanese Awamori spirit, which is made from Japanese rice. This unique spirit is indigenous to the island, which has been practiced for over 130 years.
Long grain Indica rice, which is harvested on the island, is inoculated with black Koji fungus and fermented using traditional methods in high temperature and humidity to create a fermented mash. This fermented match is distilled into the Japanese awamori spirit.
The Ukiyo Rice Vodka is made by double distilling the awamori spirit in copper pot stills, then bottled in a transparent glass bottle with a unique grayish smoked appearance. The bottle has an amazing mountain shape on the top and semi-circle bottom, which symbolizes the mountains and seas of Japan.
This small batch of premium Japanese rice vodka has wonderful aromas of violet and citrus florals, giving the drink a smooth and sweet taste.
Kanpeki
Kanpeki stands for ‘perfection’ in Japanese. This premium vodka is crafted from polished white rice grains in a double distillation process.
The double-distilled spirit is then double filtered through various carbons to produce a clean, smooth, and soft spirit. This is an award-winning vodka that has received several gold medals in the New York International Spirits Competition.
Kanpeki Rice Vodka is crafted at the Milk Street distillery, which opened in 2017. The distillery launched this vodka in 2018.
This Japanese rice vodka has wonderful aromas of cherry and a soft mouthfeel, giving a creamy rice finish with a bittersweet taste of cherry blossoms and white pepper.
Lua Moi
Lua Moi is one of the popular Vietnamese rice vodkas. It is a blend of naturally flavored, deep liquor made from fermented rice.
This alcohol is completely fermented and distilled from rice. It is produced by the Halico distillery brand.
The transparent vodka has a sweet, natural, and warm texture that gives the drink a warm and dry finish.
Okuhida
Okuhida is an ultra-premium Japanese vodka known for being the best rice-based vodkas globally. It is produced using a Russian method, which gives the drink a unique and distinct profile.
Okuhida is created by the Takagi Shuzo Brewery, which is very near to Nagoya. It is a small family-run business that has been making rice-based vodkas since the 17th century.
This vodka recipe was adapted from Russia when the owner of the brand traveled to this country. He bought the distillation equipment from Russia and used this at his brewery to make the premium rice vodka.
The vodka is packed in an elegant blue bottle labeled with the traditional Japanese rice Washi paper that enhances the square bottle design.
The brand uses one of the exquisite Japanese rice varieties, Miyama Nishiki, to produce this vodka. The rice is processed into sake, a traditional Japanese drink, distilled three times and aged for six years.
The matured spirit is white birch charcoal-filtered in order to enhance the taste and purity. The brand makes only a thousand high-quality vodka bottles in a batch.
Okuhida vodka is a transparent, crystal-clear vodka with a creamy texture with mild sweet characteristics.
The Noble Experiment
The noble experiment produces an artisanal vodka distilled from rice for vodka connoisseurs. This is a small batch of handcrafted vodka distilled in a micro-distillery in South Africa.
It is distilled in a beautiful hybrid still, which helps produce smooth and elegant vodka with polished taste and silky texture.
This delicate vodka has a distinct flavor and aroma with citrus, vanilla, and sweetgrass notes that give a luxurious smooth finish to the drink.
Midtown Spirits
Midtown Spirits produces the best-tasting rice vodka using local rice grown in the Sacramento region. They have created the first distillery in Sacramento to make one of the greatest vodkas in the world using rice.
The company follows the farm-to-bottle method where it uses the rice grown in the fields surrounding the Midtown distillery and distills it to produce a classic rice vodka.
It is handcrafted in small batches and bottled in the distillery. This vodka has a clean, crisp, smooth taste and a sweet finish.
Glory Morning Super
Glory Morning Super-premium rice vodka is a mild vodka distilled from rice. It has a smooth texture.
The brand produces this vodka in four flavors: blueberry and acai, smooth classic vodka, elderflower and lemon drop, and watermelon and dragon fruit.
The smooth classic vodka has light aromas and flavors distilled from rice grains. The blueberry and acai vodka has wonderful aromas of blueberry and acai berry fruits.
The classic vodka is infused with elderflower essences and lemon juice to produce a citrus elderflower and lemon drop vodka. The watermelon and dragon fruit is a summer vodka with aromas and flavors of fresh watermelon and dragon fruit.
DV8
DV8 is a flavourful vodka distilled with a hundred percent medium-grain Calrose rice grown in Colorado. It is produced by the Deviant Spirits brand.
This is a small batch of vodka that is distilled 13 times from Calrose rice, where the heads and the tail cuts are made by hand. The special distillation process helps in ensuring the purity of the hearts. The distilled spirit is unfiltered to keep the original flavors and aromas of the mash.
The luscious smooth rice vodka has a rich taste with sweetness from rice. It is a gluten-free grain-to-glass vodka with wonderful notes of fruit, sake, bubble gum, banana, and toasted marshmallow that hints sweetness to the drink. This fruity, aromatic, light vodka gives a sweet finish to the drink with a subtle heat in the end.
Everest
Everest is one of the best natural, gluten-free vodkas, which is made only with the finest rice grains and Himalayan water.
The brand uses naturally gluten-free rice, giving the vodka a crisp taste. The best part about this vodka is that it is made with the world’s purest spring water, which is specially sourced from the Langtang Himalayan range. This is at the height of 23000 feet above sea level!
The purity of the Himalayan water reflects the purity of the vodka, which is available in 4 different flavors. Everest Original, Everest Raspberry Ridge, Everest Chocolate Frost, and Everest Lemon Glacier.
The Everest Original vodka is a natural gluten-free vodka that is made with your ingredients. As a result, it has an incredibly smooth and neutral taste.
The Everest Raspberry Ridge is an elegant vodka with the simple flavors of fresh ripe wild raspberries that gives sweetness and tartness to the drink. In addition, this vodka has a fresh and fruity flavor that adds a sweet finish to the glass.
The Everest Chocolate Frost Vodka is a unique drink with a delicate taste of cocoa. It has the aromas of dark chocolate and the palate with the stickiness of sweet milk chocolate candy. This gives a pleasant surprise finish with a distinguished flavor palate.
The Everest Lemon Glacier Vodka is a subtle and sweet floral vodka with the aromas of fresh lemon, a citrus palate that gives a herbal and sweet finish to the drink.
Han
Han is a popular vodka that is made in Korea using barley, rice, and pure spring water. It is produced in Korea, but bulk shifted to Taiwan and bottled.
The smooth and clean-tasting vodka is produced using fermented rice grains distilled in small batches for clarity and purity.
The crystal-clear vodka has a bright appearance with a sweet and thick texture. It has sweet notes from the polished rice and aromas of vanilla with a slight sweetness on the palate that produces a smooth finish to the drink.
Can We Make Vodka from Rice?
Yes, vodka can be made using rice grains. Like all other vodkas, rice vodka is made by creating a mash using a particular rice grain. It can be basmati, polished, Japanese, or glutinous rice.
The fermented rice mash is used for distilling pure neutral spirit. The spirit is enhanced with infusions of real fruits and botanicals to make rice-flavored vodkas.
Does Rice Vodka Taste Differently from Other Vodkas?
Yes, rice vodkas have a distinct aroma and flavor profile than other grain-based vodkas. It has a lighter, refreshing, and smoother taste than potato, rye, barley, or wheat-based spirits.
Typically, rice vodka has a slightly floral aroma and a starchy sweet flavor.
How Do You Drink Rice Vodka?
Most people who love drinking rice vodka recommend the traditional ways of drinking it.
You can drink straight, add no water, or follow the typical vodka on the rocks method by adding a few ice cubes to savor the smooth and light flavors of the rice vodka.
Best Ways to Enjoy Rice Vodka
Rice vodka is also a great base to make plenty of cocktails such as
Honey Cocktail
Mix rice vodka with brewed honey tea, elderflower cordial, fresh lime juice, and apple juice with new ice cubes.
Rice Martini
Blend rice vodka with simple syrup lemon juice, and garnish with chili or orange slices.
Rice Vodka Sour
Mix rice vodka with egg white, lime juice, simple syrup, and ice cubes to make a quick refreshing cocktail.
Rice Vodka Lemon Drop
Mix rice vodka with lemon juice and simple syrup to create a citrusy lemon drop cocktail.
Rice Vodka Lemonade
Mix rice vodka with lime juice, club soda, ice sugar, and mint leaves to create a cool cocktail.
Rice Vodka Cosmo
Blend cranberry juice with rice vodka, ice cubes, orange peel, and lime juice to create a Cosmopolitan cocktail.
Tamarind Cocktail
Mix rice vodka with lime juice, tamarind concentrate, and ice cubes to create a tangy cocktail.
Rice Vodka Sunset
Blend Cranberry juice, orange juice, rice vodka, lemon juice, and ice cubes to make a bright cocktail.
