Chivas Brothers Century of Scotch

Back in 1995, Chivas Regal decided to create a vatted malt (that was the legal term at the time) composed of 100 different malts from Scotland. This was quite an undertaking, and the fact alone definitely caught my attention. I had a small sample, but I believe the full bottle comes with a booklet detailing the 100 malts used. No grain whisky was involved in the blend. Bottled at 43% ABV, with a golden color. On the nose, it presents a very fruity character. Gooseberries. Appealing forest fruits. Red fruits. A hint of caramel. A great aroma of lemonade. Very fruity, with vanilla and citric notes. Milk powder. After the initial taste, the aroma brought out nuttiness and cardboard. Quite intriguing, it raised my expectations for the palate. It's on the palate where I understood how such a blend is possible: you can achieve this by incorporating some young malts. Nutty, it tastes like nougat. Coconut milk, almondy, and woody. The aftertaste was very simple and brief. Oaky, woody, dry. This is where it significantly lost points. Okay, let's break down this composition. It's a beautiful bottle containing a blend that had never been attempted before. That alone presents a challenge: to correctly harmonize the malts and the strength from different casks. It's not overly spicy, which is something that can easily happen when using too many whiskies in a blend. The main issue is that if you have experience with whisky, you'd anticipate a high degree of complexity from a 100-malt blend. The only complexity I found was in the aroma. The rest of the whisky was very easy to drink, quite enjoyable, but far too ordinary for what it represents. It's not a bad dram at all; it just failed to surprise me. My rating for it is 76 out of 100.