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In May of this year Buffalo Trace announced with great fanfare the arrival of a new bottling in their incredibly sought after Weller line, Weller Millennium. For years, Buffalo Trace’s William LaRue Weller offering, a part of their Buffalo Trace Antique Collection or “BTAC” for short, was the pinnacle of the Weller lineup. Last year saw the release of Daniel Weller which took the top spot, featuring Emmer wheat, an ancient Egyptian grain that doesn’t exactly find its way to the stills of many – if any – distillers. As Buffalo Trace continues to work to stay relevant in a busy space these releases are certainly interesting, but largely unavailable and perhaps a touch frustrating to the general populous who are just trying to find even the most entry level of the Weller lineup, yet alone another unicorn with an outlandish price tag. Nonetheless, this post is dedicated to unpackaging all the details associated with this latest release, including the history of the man it’s named after and the current market pricing on the bourbon secondary which we discuss below.
William Larue Weller was a liquor wholesaler operating his business, W.L. Weller & Sons, out of Louisville Kentucky from the mid- to late 1800’s. Weller is given credit for the first commercial production of a wheated bourbon, now available through Buffalo Trace Distillery under the name W.L. Weller. Later in William Larue Weller’s life, he hired on Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle who served as a sales representative. I'd hope that's a somewhat familiar name!
Bourbon by law has to contain greater than fifty-one percent corn in its mashbill, or “recipe” if you will. Wheated bourbon just like all bourbons contains greater than fifty-one percent corn and uses wheat as the second highest grain in the mashbill. By using wheat, it imparts an often sweeter and softer flavor profile that has less of a bite than the spiciness that is imparted by bourbons that have a greater rye content for example. A couple other “wheaters” that many Bourboneur’s would recognize include Makers Mark and Larceny to name but a few.
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Weller Millennium gets its name from the fact that the whiskey includes barrels that were distilled at the start of the millennium, in the year 2000. The bourbon is however a blend of various whiskeys including straight bourbons and wheat whiskeys (note, that means not necessarily wheated bourbons) including some from 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2006. I’ve not counted, but there purportedly are 99 starbursts (rays of light) on the case which match the 99 proof that this whiskey is offered at.
The manufacturer’s suggested retail price or “MSRP,” which of course is only but a suggestion at the end of the day, Buffalo Trace has set at 7,500 bucks. In the last week or so these have finally started to trickle out onto the secondary where the handful that have come up have seen asking prices between eleven to fourteen thousand bucks straight out the gate. As always, your best option for keeping tabs on this and over 3,000 other coveted bottles of brownwater on the secondary is the Bourbon Blue Book™.
Another unicorn launched, but one that I don’t see a lot of folks digging into their pockets to get. Compare the ask of 7,500 bucks to that to the coveted Pappy Van Winkle lineup, where the MSRP for a bottle of Pappy 23 is around 300 bucks…ultra-aged or not, I think the price point is a bit laughable. A recent poll of Bourboneur’s highlighted that a vast majority are spending less on allocated bottles overall and at the price point this is being offered at, is simply a bottle that few are going to care to have, be that an overpriced pour at a high-end restaurant or the whole enchilada on the secondary. I’ll save selling off a kidney on the black market for something that really is worthy of the cost.
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