I know this is a crazy long shot but anyone in Japan think its possible to help me out?
I looking for a bottle of Suntory Yamazaki Sherry Cask 2016. They come out on Feb 1st and I have no idea how hard it will be to get or how it would get to me. If you would like to figure this dilemma out with me let me know!

That particular whiskey is actually being sold globally for the first time ever so it will be available in almost every country including the states. Not widely available but you would probably save money finding it locally if at all possible.

I pm'd you but yeah waterbear is right. Due to the crazy demand and low # of bottles it will be hard to get but your local shops will get small allotments, and with some persistence you should be able to pick up one locally. The suggested retail seems high, and then most stores will gouge you on top of that. Prices of Japanese whisky have gotten absolutely ridiculous lately. Just plain stupid. Even non-age statement stuff has gone through the roof. Luckily Japanese distillers are more apt to use well-aged juice in their limited releases because of the attention to quality, so you will probably be O.K. with a NAS bottling like the Yamazaki you are looking for.

FYI a good proportion of scotch is aged in sherry casks, it is one of the traditional methods so it's interesting to me that this constitutes as a premium release. But Yamazaki is good stuff, no arguments there.

Even the Yamazaki 12 has gotten hard to find here locally because of demand.

The Hakushu 12 is one of my favorite single malts and still relatively affordable (60 bucks or so, sometimes less). Still easy to find too. Hasn't gotten the hype yet. Some folks will groan about even that price, but I make a bottle last anywhere from 6 months- 2 years after opening so I get my money's worth.

It really pays to do your homework and not fall for the hype when buying whisky, there is a lot of overpriced garbage out there. Beware of whiskies with fancy names, like "dark origins". Most Japanese stuff is very good though, let's see if they can maintain their standards while trying to meet their demand going forward.

Sounds like the chances of buying the sherrycask yamazaki is even better than in japan !
Here, i got to enter a lottery for it. As tough as popular lotteries in our hobby
Yamazaki got a lot of attention due to all the awards they garnered lately and also a popular drama about whiskey making. Overseas folks especially the chinese are snapping them up by the truckload these days. Even hibiki and Hakushu 12 years are also rare these days.

The Hibiki 12 has gotten hard to find here as well, only a matter of time until the Hakushu 12 goes the same route. I love the Hibiki 12.

I am sure that sherry cask will still be pretty difficult to find in the states, but not impossible.

EDIT: I am in a metropolitan area of 5 million people with a HUGE liquor market, so I have a skewed view of what is available and what is not. Smaller towns in the U.S. are generally tough for limited releases like this. But every once in a while you find affordable gems in hole-in-the-wall liquor stores in small US towns. I would think New Orleans would have some nice specialty stores palepoli.

Glad to know there are some fellow whisky drinkers on the board. Whisky and kaiju go together like peas and carrots!

Hibiki 12 is getting harder to find because it is no longer being released, NAS Hibiki Harmony has taken its place. This also happened to the 12 year Nikka Pure Malt a while back along with both Single Malts (Yoichi and Miyagikyo) and a few more that were never available here. So now whenever I see a bottle of 12 I scoop it up, but the selections are not as great as you would think around here.

Here's my current Japanese whisky collection

Yowza! Very nice palepoli! I should be asking you where to find this stuff.

That Hibiki Harmony NAS is not very good IMHO. Same thing happening here, NAS bottles are replacing the 12's and any other age statement.