My first experience with a brandy, which cognac is, was like my first experience with most things- crude, wrong, and ultimately ugly.  I was at the exquisite Palmer Hotel in Chicago attending the American Historians Association’s annual convention. For two days I had attended panels on the study of history.

The brandy was dreadful- syrupy, saccharine, stinky stuff that made my eyes water each time I swigged it.  It tasted like cheap red wine doped up with Kamchatka Vodka.  Worse, after consuming the better part of the bottle, I was forcibly dragged from my room by a colleague to a museum exhibit on turn of the century Jewish women in New York.  I remember swooning repeatedly as I was marched passed old dresses, kitchen items, and girdles.

Needless to say, my encounter with Courvoisier's Millenium was much better.  In fact it was delightful.  I had slipped into the Spirts Expo at a swank uptown Manhattan hotel on a press pass, and after hours of gulping down all sorts of expensive booze, I got a nip of Millennium.  Hocked by a tale of smiley people as Courvoisier’s hooch for the year 2000, I feared it might be a PR stunt, like the rotten $250 a bottle scotch I gagged on earlier.  But no.

Millennium is a very good cognac.  Like most brandies, it is distilled red wine aged in barrels (some brandy is made from fruit).  What differs brandy from cognac is that cognac is made in the Cognac region of France, and it is aged in barrels made from oak taken only from the forests of Limousin or Troncais.  And in my experience, cognac tends to be distilled from finer wines, which obviously import a better taste.

Anyway, after having a few belts of Millennium, I smiled and took one of their bottles and walked away from their table.  Unlike the folks at Lagdronachkie scotch, who nearly tackled me when I tried to walk out the expo with one of their fifths, the Courvoisier folks gave me no guff.

Since the Expo, I've subjected Millenium to repeated tastings, sharing it last with a monstrous British software mogul this past July 4th.  Though it was near 100 degrees outside, the mad William insisted that we drink some cognac.

Even it that awful heat I could appreciate the almost candy-like sweetness.  It is not at all like the standard Courvoisier, which is very dry, hints at grape, and possesses a slight alcohol ester.  Where Courvoisier dries on the tongue, Millenium slides over it, swathing it with berry and caramel.  Though it warms the body, it doesn't make you flush with sweats like schnapps.

A bottle will run you perhaps $40.  It is well worth it.  It's splendid to sip at the day's end when you're alone, safely tucked away from the hurly burly outside.  (Rating ***3/4)