Originally Posted by
Duke787
It's been a Japanese whisky kind of week.
For starters -- it was sad to see the Hibiki 17 era come to a close for a while. Thankfully still have 3 bottles left from various Tokyo trips to slowly drink down over the next couple of years but will still need to find a suitable (and likely much cheaper at current prices) replacement from some corner of the earth (perhaps time to explore Kavalan in more depth).
On a similar note, last night finished my last bottle of Taketsuru 17 which is another great Japanese whisky that seems to be going the way of the dodo. Snagged this bottle for a whopping $28 (~3000 JPY at the time) at the NRT duty free back in 2016 which is unreal thinking back. And tonight it's my last bottle of Hibiki 12 that's getting closed out (good but definitely not worth it at current secondary market prices).
It's indeed a sad time in general for those of us who love Japanese whisky. I still have an unopened Hibiki 17, a mostly-full 17, a mostly-full 21, and a good bit of the 12 and various NAS (including an unopened Harmony). But those will only last so long.
I couldn't even find the NAS Hibiki recently at any airport duty free shops, in Germany, Ireland, the UK, the US (IAD and SFO), or Taiwan. Makes me triply-annoyed I didn't get the bottle last year at HKG (knew, like TPE, I couldn't board with it headed to the US due to their silly "TSA says you can't rule); it was the neat artwork one, vs. the "Master's Select" ones I've gotten from NRT (my 17s and 21 are all special artwork bottles, which though they did cost more, were at least at the time I got them easier to find than regular retail). I read that Suntory has discontinued even the NAS Hibiki to be able to blend what they have into other NAS whisky.
I also regret not spending the $90 on 12-year Hakushu in Tokyo when I was there 18 months ago... at the time, it seemed a little high and something easy to continue to find. LOL.