Hibiki's everyday bottle is the value; the rest are for collectors

Hibiki is the most garlanded blended whisky Japan makes, and this week its range falls cleanly into two camps. The one bottle most people actually pour sits a touch under its neighbours; the two dressed for the cabinet sit at several times theirs. To place any of them, the model lines a bottle up against the ten whiskies it reads as nearest in flavour and takes the middle of their prices, the going rate for that style on this week's shelf, what I will call the bottle's room. Three Hibikis made the shelf this week. One is a buy. The other two are a different sort of purchase altogether.

Start with the Japanese Harmony, the no-age-statement blend that is Hibiki as most drinkers meet it. At $176 it lands about 17% under a room of roughly $212, the only Hibiki here asking less than the company it keeps. It drinks the way the label promises: gentle and polished, sweet and creamy, with caramel, a soft floral lift of rose, and the faint incense-and-sandalwood note that Japanese oak lends a blend. For a whisky this sought-after to be tagged below its neighbours is worth acting on, with one honest caveat noted below about how tight that comparison really is. This is the house pour, and of the three it is the one to take home.