It’s been a while since I reviewed a Macallan whisky here but eventually I do have one today – “A Night on Earth in Scotland”. This whisky is a seasonal release to celebrate Hogmanay (pronounced “hog·muh·nei”) which is Scotland’s New Year’s Eve festivities.

We have here Bourbon & Sherry casks, each bringing different flavours into the whisky profile: rich dried fruit and spiciness from American and European oak sherry casks and a rich  and sweet shortbread-like note from the ex-bourbon casks.

Macallan are even suggesting a food pairing for this whisky: Sip it neat with shortbread on the side. Probably to enrich the shortbread ‘experience’.

The Macallan A Night on Earth in Scotland (40%)

Photo: thewhiskyexchange.com

Nose: Honey candies, honeyed porridge, vanilla pods, gentle oak spice, white pepper. lemon, citrus peels, nutmeg, fruity with juicy peaches and pears, cranberries, almonds croissant, slightly perfumed. Good mellow and balanced nose but it could benefit from a slightly higher ABV and you can actually imagine the shortbread here! Continue reading →

The Macallan Classic Cut was first released in USA late 2017. It’s a NAS Macallan which isn’t a real surprise but it did surprised the crowds by having a hefty 58.4% ABV. We didn’t see a cask strength release from Macallan for ages, or at least since the Macallan 10yo CS and the Cask Strength releases years ago.

It seems that Macallan has finally realized it’s time for a come back following the rising stiff competition from other distilleries releasing good sherried whiskies (hello Aberlour & Glendronach!) and I’m sure that the constant pleas from the fans didn’t hurt the cause.

Right now Macallan Classic Cut is a USA release only at the moment, but further editions and batches will be find their ways into the European markets. Since we can find it for $80 in the states, we can probably expect it to cost £60/€70 when full distribution will take place (although even now you can find stray bottles in European shops for double that price).

Let’s check it out.

Macallan Classic Cut 2017 Edition (58.4%, $79.99)

Nose: Dried fruits, sultanas, prunes, dates paste, milk chocolate,  gentle spiciness with cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. Continue reading →

Last week Macallan announced a new series with four expressions, all without age statement, in 4 different price points. Are you having some deja vu? Because I did.

For a moment I thought it must be some reposting of the original 1824 series announcement which incidentally happened exactly 4 years ago in October. But a second and deeper look revealed the truth of a new Travel Retail series which will completely replace the 1824 series and all other TR expression starting January 2018.

But the discussion on this series in one of my whisky FB groups, turned to the 1824 series faster than you could say Jack Robinson. Not too many people here tasted because the 1824 series didn’t reached us and didn’t show up on shelves.  Yes, it means we’re still ‘stuck’ with the Fine Oak series, although I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing or a good thing :-D. To make a long story short, we all pretty much agreed that the 1824 series was a forgettable one exception of the Sienna which was quite decent relatively to its price (Ruby excluded from the discussion for it’s the premium offering).

I then looked at my notes and found that I never published them on the blog, so in ‘celebration’ of the new Macallan Quest series, I took out my Sienna archive sample, opened and re-tasted it to see if our memory of its decency was real.

The Macallan Sienna (43%, £74.55/€76,98)

Nose: Dried red fruit, vanilla and sweet maltiness to balance the sweetness, baked nutmeg, white pepper, milk chocolate and after a while, a bit of dried strawberries and cinnamon. Continue reading →

How about a Macallan review to close the weekend? Let’s have a look at Macallan Edition No.2, the second release in an annual limited edition in which Macallan partner with somebody to create this edition. In this case of the Macallan Edition No.2, it’s a collaboration between Macallan master blender Bob Dalgarno and the Spanish chefs Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca, co-founders of El Celler de Can Roca, which was twice named best restaurant in the world.

It’s a NAS whisky (no real surprise from Macallan of the last few years), with seven different oak cask types (European and American oak casks) from four different bodegas.

The Macallan Edition No. 2 (48.2%, £81.95/€97.49)

Nose: Lovely sherried nose, dried fruit, gooseberries, blackberries, cooked plums, soaked raisins (don’t get those much lately in new sherried whiskies), cinnamon, milk chocolate, velvety and with some fresh and light side. After a few minutes, getting more chocolate and coffee, berries pastry, malt, honey and buttery feeling. Continue reading →

A while ago I reviewed Macallan Rare Cask Black but it was not the first expression in the Rare Cask line up as before the Black there was the blank one 😉 (Or if you prefer, the one without an adjective). The Rare Cask whisky was released in the US late 2014 and it arrived to UK/Europe mid 2015.

In line with all their recent releases, this one is a NAS whisky and bottled at 43% so I assume it was chill filtered (the Rare Cask Black is bottled at 48% and non chill-filtered). So while the Rare Cask Black predecessor is lacking in terms of punch and whisky “purity”, maybe it’s more transparent regarding the content? After all, on the Rare Cask Black we only know there are less than 100 casks that has contributed (or can contribute) to it. So what do we know on the original Rare Cask? This is what The Macallan tells us:

Crafted to showcase complexity and depth, Rare Cask is drawn from the broadest spectrum of casks, 16 different types, ever identified by the Master Whisky Maker. Far less than 1% of those casks maturing at the distillery have been identified as fitting to bestow the Rare Cask name.  With rarity at its core, this is a whisky crafted from casks so rare they will never again be used in any Macallan whisky. Combining Spanish and American sherry seasoned oak casks, a high proportion of them first fill…

Allow me to be frank: This is collection of marketing bullshit! Where should I start in tearing all those nonsense statements?

• 16 different types of casks? I’m trying to figure out what does it mean in terms of whisky impact – with so many cask types, I assume that for most cask types in this mix the impact on the whisky is negligible so why do we care? Is it done in for the sake of transparency? Why not just go ahead and fully list the types? Let’s have a small exercise and try listing the possible cask types in this mix: Gorda, Butt, Puncheon, Hogshead, ASB, QC and Octave, both American and European Oak and probably some exotic casks. But again, that’s all besides the point: The more the merrier? Does it really teach us anything important or relevant on the whisky itself?
• “Far less than 1% of the casks in the distillery” – We have no idea what “far less” means here, the exact value could have been 0.99% or 0.5% and not necessary 0.01% as we’d like to imagine. And as Macallan produces 8 million liters of Alcohol a year, there are probably some few hundred thousands of casks in the warehouses so the limited range of casks may in fact not be so limited.
• “casks so rare they will never again be used in any Macallan whisky” – Oh really? Just like most refill casks? And allow me to bet that the first fill barrels will be used another time…
• Besides, what’s so rare in sherry seasons oak casks? Give us whisky only from proper sherry casks, now that will be rare!

OK, time to stop the rant as I’m getting too upset from this marketing mumbo jumbo and let’s check if this whisky is worthy of the “rare” title.

Macallan Rare Cask (43%, £190/$229.95/€279,99)

Nose: Ooh a very gentle and lovely Sherried nose, I usually don’t mention appearances but it got some rocking legs in the glass. Dried fruit, soaked raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg, hints of sour berries, blood oranges and after a few minutes also cereals and vanilla (must be some sherried American oak casks in those 16 types, right?) and 50% cacao chocolate. A very elegant nose. Continue reading →

lately I’ve been beating the TR market and the late trends it’s going through. But not all new TR exclusive whiskies are bad. Macallan has been doing some good TR exclusive releases for a while but even those come with issues of their own.

For example, the Macallan Rare Cask Black lacks transparency big time. The bottle itself is opaque and you can’t gauge how much whisky left in the bottle and also lacks transparency for the liquid inside – we don’t know much about the whisky. Yes, it’s somewhat peated (either the result of peated malt or usage of casks that held sherry and peated whisky in the past), and there are less than 100 such casks in Macallan warehouses. But how many of those were used here? what about casks information?

I don’t think that additional transparency will hurt sales. I understand Macallan’s decision to go the taste-is-the-only-thing-that-matter route they chose in the last few years but I don’t have to like it as I like my whisky to be less mysterious, especially when they ask consumers to pay $450 for said bottle. Does it justify that price tag?

Macallan Rare Cask Black (48%, $450 RRP)

Nose: Macallan? Are you sure? It smells like sherried Highland park to me. Peat smoke, lots of sherry goodness, There were multiple casks involved in creating this whisky but I bet there were a lots of Spanish wood casks in the mix. Prunes, dried fruit, gentle nutmeg and to lesser extent cinnamon, quite a fresh and polished nose. With time it gets sweeter and further sherried but still keeping the fresh theme and not going into cloying territory, spicy with a nice dose of white pepper, a bit of dust, cloves, gentle smoke going through all the time. Continue reading →

Again too busy with work so today, again we’ll have to be content with a quick whisky review. This time: Macallan Select Oak from the 1824 series. Upon release it was destined at the Travel Retail market, exclusively at first although now you can find it in many online stores.

The Select Oak is a combination of first-fill European oak casks seasoned with oloroso sherry, and American oak casks seasoned with oloroso sherry or bourbon.

Macallan Select Oak (40%, £55.99/€54.95)

Nose: Sweet sultanas, whiffs of young spirit, lots of malt, vanilla, toast, weak nutmeg cinnamon, sourness of unripe berries. Continue reading →