Shinobu's plain blend is the one bottle near its room

That is the headline, and it holds the whole way up the range: every Shinobu is priced over its room, and the gap widens the older and rarer the bottle gets. A word on what "its room" means, because everything here rests on it. The model takes each whisky, gathers the ten others it judges nearest on flavour, and reads off their middle price as the going rate for that style this week. That is the room the bottle sits in. Shinobu keeps a middle shelf price around $120, and the house character is a soft blended-malt one: grainy and gentle, carried by the sweet incense note that mizunara oak leaves behind, with a little green-tea freshness underneath. Four bottles carry a finding this week, and all four are below.

Start at the bottom, with the plain Blended, which is where the range makes most sense. At $110 it runs about $25 over a room near $85, roughly 29% more, and that is the smallest gap any Shinobu shows this week. It is the simplest expression of the house: soft grain and that faint mizunara sweetness, an easy, uncomplicated pour rather than a statement. You are still paying a premium for the name on the label, but of the four it is the one where the premium stays within reason. If a Shinobu is going to be the bottle you actually open on a weeknight, this is it.

The step up is the Pure Malt, the no-age-statement malt. At $147 it sits about $48 over a room near $99, close to half as much again. Two things to say about it. First, the character is more of the same house signature, grain and mizunara, polished a little further but not transformed. Second, and more important, the model cannot find a tight set of comparisons for it, so the gap is flagged as a loose one. Read 48% as a direction rather than a precise verdict: it tells you the bottle sits well over its neighbours, not that the figure is exact to the dollar. Either way, it is a long way from the Blended's value.

The Lightly Peated malt is the most interesting thing Shinobu makes, and the one where the extra outlay buys a real change in the glass. At $151 it runs about $52, or 53%, over the same room near $99, and it carries the same loose-comparison caveat as the Pure Malt. What the money gets you is a different whisky: rich and sweet, with tropical fruit and ripe peach up front and then a thread of light peat and soft smoke running through the finish. That smoke is the point of difference, the one Shinobu that does not taste like the others. The premium is steep, but at least here you can see where it goes.

Then the 10-year-old, which is where the label does the pricing. At $198 it is both the dearest Shinobu on the shelf and the furthest from its room, nearly two and a half times the $81 its nearest peers ask, a gap of about 144%. On the whisky alone there is little to separate it from the rest of the range: the same grain-and-mizunara signature, dressed up with age and a higher price. The ten-year statement and the scarcity are doing the work here, not a transformation in the glass. This is a bottle you buy because you want this bottle, and not because the numbers make a case for it.

There is a pattern under all of this, and it is worth naming plainly. Shinobu is a small, characterful house trading on a Japanese signature that drinkers will pay up for, and the shelf reflects exactly that: a floor price that is already a touch dear, and a ceiling that climbs fast once an age statement or a limited run is involved. None of that is a knock on the liquid, which is pleasant and distinctive. It is simply where the dollars go, and this week the model puts rough numbers on how far.

So, how to buy it. If you are curious about Shinobu and do not want to overpay by much, the Blended at $110 is the sensible way in: the house style, the smallest premium, the bottle to meet the name on. If you want the range at its most interesting, the Lightly Peated at $151 is the one that actually tastes different, and the smoke is worth something even if the price is full, so long as you take the loose comparison as read. The plain Pure Malt at $147 is a harder sell, more money than the Blended for a similar experience. And the 10-year-old at $198 is a want-it-for-itself purchase, priced for the badge rather than the bottle.

The simple version: start low with Shinobu, because that is where its value lives, and climb only if a specific bottle, the peated one most likely, is calling you by name.