Speyside Millennium

Lets get back to december 31, 1999. At exactly 23h59, the whole globe were waiting for the final event that would take humanity to the cave age... the frightening Y2K. And you might say that nothing happened. Well, whisky did happen. A bunch of very cool expressions and decanters were released for the change of the Millennium. One of those cool releases was The Speyside Millenium, an incredible looking crystal bottle, that came on a mahogany tantalus. Only 2000 bottles were made, to celebrate the end of the 20th century and the second Millennium. It was distilled on december 1990, at 40%abv, from the nowadays called "Spey" distillery. I obtained this bottle, in the Perfect Collection auction by Richard Gooding, the record auction where the two Macallan 1926 were sold for a million pounds each. On the nose, starts with hay, tobacco, citric gooseberries; pineapple and vanilla cake. After a first sip it gave me two notes, very interesting ones: coffee but also a rusty metal (oxide). On the palate, it is grassy and earthy. Bitter tobacco. Vanilla and Coffee. Aftertaste is really good. Starts with a chocolate note; then it releases an earthy, peppery profile. Herbal and this wonderful Mint chocolate finish. Overall, i have to conclude that even if this expression is one of those whisky ornament bottles, that most people will never drink or even open the decanter, workers from the Speyside distillery made their best efforts to deliver a very good 9yo whisky, at only 40%abv. Having said that, this won't change your life, nor is dissapointing as the Y2K was. A fair score for the "juice" itself is a solid 85 over 100.