About the Tano Shochu & Soju Bar
Tucked away in a warehouse unit at 6/167 Beavers Road, Northcote, Tano is a working shochu and soju distillery with a bar wrapped around it. Everything we make is rooted in koji and nuruk, the Japanese and Korean fermentation traditions that sit at the heart of these spirits, shaped by some of the best ingredients Australia has to offer.
And the space itself? Pure Melbourne. The distillery and bar area is decked out in street art and graffiti from top to bottom, there's a piano sitting there waiting for anyone game enough to play it, and the whole place runs on a properly chill vibe. No dress codes, no pretension, no cocktail-den theatre. Just stainless steel, spray paint and good spirits.
Pull up a seat, ask a hundred questions about fermentation (please do, we love it), or settle in with a Japanese-style beer and soak up the vibe.
If you've wandered in off the street with zero idea what shochu even is, even better - you're exactly who we built this place for.
What's in the Glass
The stuff we make
Our own spirits and sool, distilled and brewed right here on site, all built on hand-made koji and nuruk and a very Australian pantry:
Honkaku shochu: imo (sweet potato) in both white and black koji, mugi made from Victorian pearl barley, Goma (a rare toasted black sesame shochu), Ocha (fermented with premium Australian sencha green tea), and Jagari, our take on the island classic made with raw jaggery sugar from Queensland
Soju: our Pine Needle Soju at 25% and 40%, made the traditional jeungnyusik way with hand-made nuruk, plus Inja Rice Soju with its rich, savoury golden character
Korean sool: makgeolli, takju and cheongju, including a black rice series and our Wattleseed & Yuzu range, where Australian native ingredients meet traditional Korean fermentation
Never had shochu before? Ask us how to drink it. Oyuwari (cut with hot water, roughly 6:4, trust us on this one), mizuwari (cold water), over ice, or straight. Every bottle has a pour that suits it, and half the fun is finding yours.
... and a whole lot more
We're a full bar, not just a cellar door. Alongside our own spirits sits a collection of over 180 different drinks from across Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia, one of the deepest lineups of its kind in Melbourne, and we're quietly (okay, loudly) proud of it.
The shochu list alone covers every style worth knowing: imo, mugi, kome, kasutori (distilled from sake lees), kokuto, shiso, chestnut, buckwheat, and some properly out-there bottles (seaweed shochu, pumpkin shochu, and a corn shochu aged for thirty years, for starters). Then there's aged Okinawan awamori up to a bracing 60%, premium Korean soju including bottles from a designated Cultural Heritage Grand Master in Andong, cheongju, sake from Japan and Australia, baijiu (yes, including Moutai, and yes, including Tasmanian baijiu, which is a real thing), plus umeshu and yuzu liqueurs, Shaoxing wine, Vietnamese dragon fruit wine, Mongolian milk wine, arak from Bali, and a crisp yuzu lager to wash it all down.
Whether you want to go deep down the koji rabbit hole, hunt down a bottle you'd otherwise have to fly to Kagoshima or Seoul for, or just knock back a highball with your mates, we've got you covered. Pours sit mostly between $10 and $20, with a few special bottles beyond that, and the list is always growing.
And yes, there are bar snacks to keep you going!
Tastings & distillery tours
Want to go deeper? Come along for a guided tasting or a walk through the working distillery. We'll take you through the koji, the ferments, and the whole process behind every bottle, and then you get to drink your way through the results. It's a bit of an education and a lot of a good time.
What's on
There's always something brewing here (sometimes literally). Keep an eye out for Fight Club, our blind tasting nights with live scoring, where reputations are made and palates are humbled. Plus one-off events, seasonal releases and whatever else we've cooked up.
Come say hi
Tano Spirits: Distillery, Shochu & Soju Bar
Unit 6/167 Beavers Road, Northcote VIC 3070
Opening hours (Wiunter hours)
Monday – Thursday Closed
Friday 5:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Saturday 1:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Sunday 1:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Getting here: We're a short walk from the number 11 tram, and from both Northcote and Croxton stations on the Mernda line. On two wheels? The Merri Creek Trail runs right nearby, so you can roll in off the trail (or pop over from CERES) and reward yourself properly.