Weller Millennium Review

I’ve been told by a few of my friends that my reviews (especially on Buffalo Trace bottles) have become more and more cynical over the years. I won’t deny it, there’s a rage I feel inside of me whenever I read a press release full of fluff or see the producer’s suggested retail price climbing ever higher. Bourbon has jumped the shark and I feel like we’re all just numbers to distillery overlords out there.

With that being said, I’m actually going to be quite restrained in my feelings about the pricetag on the new Weller Millennium. I could go off about this for hours, but that’s not what (some of) you came here for. I’m going to try my best to be level-headed about the whole thing while also serving up a heaping bowl of speculation. I hear it’s what I do best.

What is Weller Millennium?

If you take press releases at face value, then you’ll learn that Weller Millennium is a blend of:

3% – 2000 Vintage Barrels
50% – 2003 Vintage Barrels
40% – 2005 Vintage Barrels
7% – 2006 Vintage Barrels

You’ll also notice that Weller Millennium isn’t labeled as a bourbon. This is because a portion of the blend contains wheat whiskey (a mash bill that uses at least 51% wheat). Buffalo Trace does not give us any more details than that. Could the blend be 97% wheat whiskey and 3% bourbon? How about 93% bourbon and 7% wheat whiskey? We simply don’t know.

We do know that Weller Millennium has been in the works for at least a year – and possibly more. Another reviewer claims he got the chance to sample Weller Millennium in the Fall of 2023. So whatever age you think you were thinking it is in 2024; you can probably chop a year off of it (at least).

A large part of the pricetag may come from the fact that the crystal glass decanter is handmade. But Buffalo Trace doesn’t tell us which hands made it so I’m going to assume it was Uighur slave labor in China. Do better with controlling the narrative, Buffalo Trace.

That’s about it. I’m not even sure of an exact bottle count of this release. I’m assuming at least *500 based on the amount of pictures I’ve seen posted on Instagram of these boxes setting on liquor store shelves with their first layer of dust on the top. *edit: I recently found out that there were 2000 bottles created

Ah! There I go again with being cynical! I promise I’ll do better.

A few speculations about Weller Millennium

Here’s an actual picture of me trying to make sense of WHY (not “what”) Weller Millennium is.

But first, let me start out by saying that Buffalo Trace has switched gears and made it abundantly clear that they’re in the business to make as much money as they can on the bottles they sell. For too long, they’ve allowed their bourbons to be sold at prices that are too low for what they are. They don’t profit off of the secondary market which means that all of that extra money is going into the pockets of either flippers or retail owners. This is slowly changing over the last 5+ years with bottles like O.F.C., Double Eagle Very Rare, The Last Drop (technically not a BT release) and Eagle Rare 25 Year Old Bourbon.

Buffalo Trace is only going to continue creating new labels to put their higher-priced whiskey in. Making a higher-priced Weller line was just a matter of time. Daniel Weller’s release in 2023 showed that enthusiasts were more than willing to fork out $500 for a bottle straight from the reject pile of Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection barrels. So why stop there?

Even though Buffalo Trace can practically print money with whatever whiskey they launch, they don’t go about it without a plan. Look at their lineup very closely and you’ll notice they don’t have two products that share identical stats. They must be different in at least one (preferably two) ways. The most common ways for them to be different from each other are:

Be a different proof

Be a different age

Use a different mash bill

Be bottled in single barrel form instead of batched

…And now a fifth way has revealed itself: blending different whiskies together. Weller Millennium is the first (that I know of) to do this for Buffalo Trace. But why did they decide to blend a wheat whiskey into a bourbon? And why do they even have a wheat whiskey? It’s never been offered before.

The answer to that question is the same answer you get when you ask “Where did Daniel Weller come from?” The Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection (BTEC). Buffalo Trace is constantly experimenting with new whiskeymaking techniques. It just so happens that the best ones get bottled under the BTEC label. We’ve already seen strange mash bills such as a rice whiskey, oat whiskey, Baijiu-style spirit (sorghum and peas) and a 6 grain bourbon. Based on the mash bills that they listed, it appears they’ve been experimenting with them since 2002.

But that still doesn’t explain why they would blend it with wheated bourbon. Why not make the whole thing a wheated bourbon like Weller always has been? I answered that a couple paragraphs ago when I laid out how Buffalo Trace products have to be different from each other. Why not bottle up only a blend of wheated bourbons anywhere from 15 to 23 years old? Because now you’re infringing on Pappy Van Winkle’s business.

The Pappy Connection

This is only speculation, but it seems as if Buffalo Trace made a pact with Julian Van Winkle back in 2002 that they wouldn’t undercut his business if he came on board with them. For the record, Weller 12 and Van Winkle Special Reserve Lot B coexist because they were both actively being made when the two brands joined together. But looking past those two labels should explain why we don’t see any Weller products coming out older than 12 years old – because that would take away from the specialness of Pappy.

So here’s my theory: I think that the Van Winkle tasting teams were going through their stocks of barrels destined for the 15, 20 and 23 year-old versions and found some that weren’t going to make the cut. Rather than dispose of them, Buffalo Trace said they would find a use for them in a product that wouldn’t be a competitor. Making Weller Millennium not a straight bourbon whiskey was the solution. All they had to do was pour in some wheat whiskey to the blend and that would erase the straight bourbon designation.

If my theory was close to being true, does that validate the price they’re asking for this bottle? After all, $7500 is more money than most die-hard enthusiasts will pay for whiskey over the course of a year. I can’t answer that, but what I am going to do is have a pour from this bottle to find out how much respect it deserves. As usual, I’m sampling this from a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: The main scent is a very intense vanilla note (vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting). This is followed by indulgent caramel scents, leatherbound books and sweet oak. Other sweet notes are courtesy of something close to powdered sugar on a funnel cake. Fruit notes couple with baked goods remind me of coconut macaroons, apple fritters and a hint of lemon curd. Overall, it’s a wonderful nose that finds a good middle ground between being too light and too heavy-handed.

Palate: The most distinctive taste I recognize is similar to the vanilla frosting on top of shredded wheat bites. The vanilla also comes in another variety – custard. After that subsides, I begin to taste the old, antiqued oak – it’s not powerful and won’t make you think it’s a dusty, but it’s one of the main tannic flavors I can find with the other one being shoe leather.

Soft, ground cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice provide a nice mix of flavoring spices while they mix with more obscure and fragrant flavors like sandalwood, heather, dried tea leaves, coconut shell and coconut cream. and a little bit of heather. These are the notes that are so light that most people will miss them if they’re not drinking this in the right setting. Beyond that, I find fruit notes similar to preserved cherries and dehydrated apple slices.

Finish: Oak notes begin to emerge and take control of the finish. Everything tastes very mild. I’m finding other tannic notes to also be more dominant like tobacco leaf and shoe leather. Lighter flavors like sandalwood, coconut shell and ground nutmeg also stick around. The caramel sweetness fades away rather quickly, but that doesn’t mean the finish dries out. It’s balanced and somewhat simple, but does everything pretty well.

Score: 8.3/10

At just 99 proof, Weller Millennium was never going to be a powerhouse whiskey. I think too many people believed it should be for the price. Instead, it’s really all about elegance and balance. For the most part, Buffalo Trace’s team nailed it. If Weller Millennium is the first drink you’ve had that day, the nose will quickly grow on you. However, if you’ve had stronger pours before this (or a heavy meal), I can see how some people would complain that this is a fairly lackluster bourbon.

That kind of underscores the whole issue with Weller Millennium. Buffalo Trace has often suffered from lackluster reviews for some of their most pricey bottles simply because the body of reviewers who get to taste it have usually done it in a setting where they aren’t set up to truly appreciate it.

In full disclosure, I paid a hefty sum just to get a taste of Millennium at a private event. There was a full meal of barbecue, hors d’oeuvres and a charcuterie board laid out. The bar had extremely reasonable prices for pours of Weller 12, Elmer T. Lee and Blanton’s. Everyone was eating and drinking all of these things prior to receiving their pour. But with food so rich and the event room packed with about 100 people, there was no way I could dissect all of the tasting notes there – so I poured my glass into an Aged & Ore sample bottle and waited until the next day to thoroughly study it.

Because of this, I have a lot to say about the bottle whereas a lot of my friends from that night had much more simple descriptions. I’m not saying that they were wrong and I’m right, but this is a bottle that needs a lot more patience to suss out all of the tasting notes. If you were expecting a bruiser, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Final Thoughts

Is Weller Millennium worth $7500? Not at all. But I already knew that before tasting it. It’s a bottle for the ultra-wealthy to have a new plaything to add to their pile of playthings. A lot of whiskey is going in this direction and there’s not much we can do. It’s just the way things are.

The one positive takeaway is that I proved to myself that Millennium doesn’t taste better than most $500-700 bottles I’ve had. That makes any sense of missing out on owning my own bottle much easier to swallow. So if you have a bottle all for yourself, I’m happy for you. I hope you take the time to savor it and see how nicely it’s been crafted. And if you don’t ever get a taste of this bottle, don’t worry about it, you’re really not missing out on much.

Hmm, I wasn’t thinking I could end this review on a positive note, but here we are. I guess I don’t have to be so cynical after all.