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WHISKY REVIEWS, NEWS, HISTORY & FOLKLORE

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The Macallan

The Macallan has become a bit of a weird prospect for lovers of Scotch whisky, by which I mean, those who enjoy drinking the stuff. I don’t think anyone doubts the quality of the spirit but the owners, Edrington, are obsessed with the collector and investor market and have no interest in courting the sort of people who read this blog. That seems a shame to me. Here we have a fine single malt, from a distillery with a long and proud history, yet the owners are happy for that liquid to sit in bottles, collecting dust, potentially for generations. The Macallan isn’t a producer of Scotch whisky anymore. It’s a manufactory of expensive ornaments. How on Earth did we get to this point?

The original Macallan Distillery was born in the wake of the 1823 Excise Act, a law that made it affordable for Highland distillers to establish legitimate businesses. Alexander Reid built the distillery on land that overlooked the River Spey, on a hillside between the villages of Craigellachie and Aberlour. A farm distillery in those days, it shared the land with Easter Elchies, a 17th century farmhouse that still stands today.

Reid’s distillery was taken over by James Stuart in 1868 before he, in turn, sold in 1892, this time to the impressive figure of Roderick Kemp. Kemp was a giant of Victorian distilling who used money raised by the sale of Talisker to fund his takeover of Macallan. In those days, it was common for a distillery to trade on the good reputation of Glenlivet whisky and Kemp named his new venture, The Macallan-Glenlivet Distillery, a suffix which though once common, has all but died out today. Kemp’s family retained their involvement in the distillery for more than a century before it was purchased by Highland Distillers, who would go on to become Edrington.

Like so many of Scotland’s distilleries, Macallan became reliant on blended Scotch for its continued success. Whisky was produced and sold to blending houses with very little bottled as a single malt. That changed in the early ’80s when the growing whisky loch and plummeting sales of blended whisky shifted focus to the emerging single malt market. The first official bottling was released in 1984, carrying an 18 year age statement. That dram laid the groundwork for what would follow, including the use of sherry casks to mature the spirit, a technique now cemented as crucial to the Macallan profile.

Edrington created a visitor centre in 2001 and began to push increasingly towards the premium market. That trend has continued and with each passing year, new expressions gain both in age statement and in excessive packaging. The Macallan as a brand has been responsible for several world record auction sales and often appears in Film and TV, usually as the drink of choice for a suave, wealthy, male protaganist. A sure sign that the brand is now seen as a status symbol, as much, if not more, than it is a drink.

This is all well and good. I don’t buy collectible bottles and so I don’t really pay any attention to what’s happening in that sector. If there are people who want to pay $1,000,000 to look at a bottle of whisky, then more power to them but I do wish that Edrington would also cater to the drinkers. The Macallan Gold used to be a common fixture in UK supermarkets but has now disappeared and to be honest, it was never all that good anyway. It certainly didn’t carry the sort of quality that would live up to the reputation of the distillery.

It has become a sad reality that there are no real opportunities to sample a decent Macallan on a sensible budget. From what I’ve heard, you can’t even visit the distillery shop without a prior booking nowadays. Turn up for a look around and you’ll find a locked gate. If your name’s not down, you’re not getting in. That sort of exclusivity has never sat particularly well with me. The whisky industry has correctly been focusing on being inclusive in recent times and The Macallan, and all the wannabes who wish they were Macallan, are quite happy to be inclusive, so long as you conform to certain parameters. Most important of all, being the size of your bank balance.

This all means, for most whisky drinkers, The Macallan may as well not exist. It is, to all intents and purposes, a lost distillery. R.I.P.

The last bottle of Macallan I personally owned was the 12 year old Sherry Oak that I bought at the distillery in 2018 (you can read about that here). It was a nice enough drop but a bit steeply priced given its age statement and ABV. I don’t remember tasting another since then. It was nice then, to find this interesting wee sample in the advent calendar sent to me by the lovely folk at Bevvy. It certainly isn’t a bottle I would normally buy but it’s an opportunity to see what all the fuss is about.

*Full disclosure: the sample featured in this review came in an Advent Calendar that was sent to me free of charge (from Bevvy.com). As always I will strive to give an honest opinion on the quality of the dram and the value for money it represents.

The Whisky

The Archival Series is a long-running collection of bottles that celebrate old Macallan adverts. These adverts of the ’80s and ’90s were designed by David Holmes and Nick Salaman and played an important role in making The Macallan the success it is. Folio 3 features an image of two boys making snowballs, part of a wider campaign that focused on whisky being best produced during cold weather. Sadly, there is little information about the liquid that actually made it into the bottle which perhaps isn’t a surprise, given that Edrington don’t actually expect anyone to drink it. It was originally released in 2018 and comes bottled at 43% ABV.

Smell: As you would expect, there’s a lot of dried fruits from the sherry influence. There’s orange zest along with raisins and sultanas and prunes. Even some grape juice in there. Dark chocolate. Treacle. Black Forest Gateaux. Walnuts. Perhaps some red berry top notes.

Taste: Deep, deep sherry. Oceanic depths of sherry. Oak tannins. Wee bit of dryness on the finish. Not much in the way of spice or warmth. Coca Cola now. With some charcoal at the back. Touch of oaky dryness on the finish.

Thoughts: The dram pretty much does what you would expect it to do. It’s a big old sherry bomb and anything that might have resembled spirit character has largely been smothered to death by raisins. Now, that doesn’t make it a bad whisky. In fact, I rather enjoyed it. There’s a depth and a richness to the cask influence that gives the feeling of quality but the overall effect didn’t feel all that original and to my palate, the whisky came across a bit too polished. Even, dare I say it, smooth. I’m not sure smooth is what I would personally be looking for in a £200 (never mind £10,000) bottle but if smooth sherry cask is what you want and you have deep pockets and a love for status symbols in liquid form then by all means, knock yourself out.

Price: Originally priced around £200 on release. It’s a nice dram, especially if you enjoy sherry cask without much in the way of spice but I don’t think it’s quite special enough to justify such a tag. As for the current secondary market price of £7,000 to £10,000… well who knows? Maybe it would prove to be a good investment at that price. Maybe it’ll continue to demand higher and higher sums but then again, it might not. If every Macallan released keeps going into collections, surely there must come a point where the sheer quantity starts to affect price? That’s not something we whisky drinkers need to worry about though. We’ll just continue buying affordable whiskies from distilleries that want our custom. Maybe we’ll spare a thought, or raise the occasional dram to the lost Macallan distillery, or maybe we won’t because there’s far better for far less available to us and who wouldn’t want to drink to that instead.

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For more about The Macallan visit here

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