Chivas Century of Malts

Apparently this was released in 1995. A blend of 100 malts. I've read that it's vatted, no grain, but nothing totally confirming this. With 100 malts to blend I'd like to think there's no room for any grain whisky, though. The shop I frequent found some in their store room and put them on the floor and I couldn't resist picking it up.

Body: Between medium light to medium

Nose: Vanilla, Toffee, Pecans (pralines?), sherry, fruitcake. Very sweet.

Palette: Up front many of the sweet nosings appear on the tongue, vanilla, fruit, nut and winy notes, but quickly move into heathery smoke and and peat. A nice contrast and a surprise as the smokey and peaty side of this blend is not evident on the nose, though it shouldn't be surprising knowing it contains Laphroaig, Caol Ila, Lagavullin, Ladaig and many other island staples.

Conclusion: A really great and unique blend. With 100 malts, it sounds like a bit of a gimmick; like a soda fountain suicide. But whoever was in charge of blending this knew what they were doing. Containing so many malts beloved on their own for their unique flavors, the task to make them all work together seems daunting to me. But this is a fun and genuinely complex and well balanced malt blend that wasn't just thoughtlessly tossed together just to be able to put a bottle on the market claiming to have 100 different malts within.

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