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The story
A thread that started with the casual question “What are you drinking right now?” drew a wide range of answers — from affordable options like Black Nikka and canned chuhai, to the famed Burgundy wine “Leroy” and Japanese whiskies like Yamazaki and Hibiki. Reports surfaced that even village-level Leroy bottles now top ¥1 million, prompting a wave of “how much does that even cost” reactions. Meanwhile, some posters, stunned by the rising prices of domestic whisky, shrugged it off with “might as well just get a Macallan” — making for a thread with a clear divide in temperature between the cheap-booze crowd and the luxury-drinker crowd.
What people said
Black Nikka Clear
I like cheap booze
Nice, you're drinking the good stuff
How's the 2010 vintage?
Mine's a 2012, so it came to about ¥50,000
Lately even village-level bottles go for over ¥1 million I think
Want to drink but don't want to go through that hell again
Just checked Takashimaya and a 2015 is going for ¥2.2 million now
Guess it's all doctors and IT company execs in here
Who's actually buying this stuff
2014 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos, Vincent Dauvissat
Dauvissat's Les Clos
That's top-tier Chablis right there
So, milk
Now it's like once every six months I'll grab a 'fresh-squeezed' canned chuhai or a bottle of wine
It's got a pretty strong acidity
Haven't had it in ages — was it always like this?
The other day I saw the price tags on Hibiki and Yamazaki while buying shochu and nearly fainted
They're like 10 times what they used to cost
Honestly, if Yamazaki's both impossible to find and wildly overpriced when you do find it, you might as well just grab a Macallan — you can still get those for near retail price
Over a Kahlúa Milk
honestly all I really want is to get drunk off alcohol
so part of me thinks obsessing over taste, aroma, and terroir is kind of dumb, even while I'm doing it
You should probably just quit drinking
That's textbook alcoholic thinking right there 🥴
https://youtube.com/shorts/SuUrMFpjsz8?si=5dPhaLzOABAZeZqI
But it's sold out a lot of the time though
This stuff's actually really good, right?
That's just flavored with artificial aroma
Drank tons of it back in my younger days
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Whisky and sake prices have risen sharply in recent years — domestic whiskies like Hibiki and Yamazaki have seen supply dry up amid overseas popularity and a shortage of aged stock, pushing prices to several times what they were just a few years ago. The Burgundy wine (Leroy) that came up in the thread has likewise seen speculative price surges driven by low production volumes and growing international acclaim, with even village-level bottles now exceeding ¥1 million in some cases. The thread put this kind of high-end drinking talk side by side with chatter about affordable options like Black Nikka and canned chuhai, revealing a clear temperature gap between those who say “I just want to get buzzed, taste and aroma be damned” and those who want to savor terroir and craftsmanship. Rather than one side being “right,” the thread ended up highlighting just how wide the range of ways to enjoy alcohol really is.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread 「Hey, what booze are you drinking right now?」.
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