Originally Posted by
Duke787
Disappointing but not surprising. I'll try the mini approach and if anyone else sees this before next Friday and has any pointers let me know.
Got my bottle last year thanks to some awesome FTers on this thread who pointed me to some small shop near Ginza so open to any ideas - definitely don't want to break the bank but honestly in NC, the best I can hope to do is $250-299 plus shipping (no one in the state carries it) so that's my upper limit.
Wait, what? $250 for Hibiki 17? That's outrageous!
FWIW, I just swung by the Tenjin Loft a couple hours ago, and they had ample stock of Hak/Yam 12 and Hibiki 17 minis:
The BIC Camera a block away had some stock last week, but was completely out of minis today. They did have full size bottles of Nikka 12, though, at a reasonable (nowadays) 5500 yen.
I then walked back to my hotel via a second hand store in Nakasu. They had seven full-size bottles of Yamazaki 12 (at 12k yen) and one bottle of Hibiki 17 (at 14k yen). As pointed out above, there may be concerns that the product is fake -- I wouldn't give away one of these bottles as a gift, and at 10,780 yen for 14 minis of Yamazaki 12 and 13,275 yen for 14 minis of Hibiki 17, you're better off buying minis for your own consumption. (The 770 and 885 yen prices, respectively, are on the high side, but at least Loft has decent stock).
This is Fukuoka, btw, so won't help with your quest in Tokyo, but just to give an idea of what's out there. The Shibuya Loft had comparable stock last week.
ETA: I hate the FT software update. No idea why it's cutting off my picture.