The Macallan
Macallan is one of the legendary names in whisky and is often referred to by connoisseurs as the "the Rolls Royce of single malts" or "the Dom Perignon of Scotch. Much sought after by collectors, it has garnered numerous prizes over its almost 200-year history and special editions of Macallan have fetched eye-popping prices at auction.
What's important to remember is how relatively new Macallan is as a single malt. Macallan always had a superb reputation but it was always venerated as distillery which produced whisky for blending: It wasn’t until around 1980 that the emphasis changed to the distillation and marketing of single malt, something which took place as the demand for fillings from other distillers began to wane. To that extent, Macallan, as we know it today, not unlike quite a few of its peers, is a comparatively recent creation.
Macallan was a pioneer in the 1980s of bringing in the concept of the bespoke casks in terms of sampling specific woods (sherry and oak ) and shipping them to Tevasa, the cooper in Jerez, with very specific requests for the building and oloroso sherry seasoning of the cask. To that extent, Macallan has really created a new, more refined art of casking and their study of woods and attention to all the details of the process is without peer. The casking staff is 25 people strong which is easily the largest specialist department in a casking warehouse in the industry. They will typically sample over 30,000 casks each year.
The story of Macallan begins when Alexander Reid, a barley farmer and school teacher, first begins in 1820 to cultivate barley on an 8-acre corner to the south-east of the 485 acres Easter Elchies Estate, land situated on a plateau above the Spey river near Aberlour, Craigellachie.
Reid’s sponsor and the lessor of the land was the landowner, Scottish peer and Member of Parliament, the Earl of Seafield and 9th Baronet of Colquhoun, the 24th Clan Grant Chief, Sir Lewis Alexander Grant-Ogilvie.
1823 was the year of the Duke of Gordon’s Excise Act which allowed companies to gain licenses for the legal distillation of whisky for an annual fee of £10 as well as a duty fee which was levied per gallon produced, an act which had largely come about as a result of George IV’s recent (1822) visit to Scotland. Alexander secured his license in 1824 with Seaforth’s support and began selling whisky under the brand name ”The Craigellachie”, starting up modestly with a distillery hut and two pot stills. Reid lived in Easter Elchies House with his wife and two children and was aided by an exciseman, Donald Robertson and 7 ”servants” who would either be tending to the barley or distilling.
Easter Elchies had been built, almost definitely on the site of an older property in 1700 by Captain John Grant of Elchies. it had sold it to Seaforth (who if you look at his name, is in fact a relative) in 1759 by the captain’s grandson, also named John, and temporarily leased back to the Grants in the intervening years. The Lairds of Grant and the Seaforths were the longtime rulers of Strathspey both in the title and also economically.
The name Macallan is the name of the ancient parish in which the estate sits. There is a ruined church and churchyard on the site which also contains a mausoleum for the Grant family. The church was destroyed by fire around 1760 or so but is still very much in evidence. It is known today as the Macallan Burial Ground.
Macallan is sometimes ascribed to ”Magh” being the Gaelic for fertile group eliding with St Fillan, a Saint who is supposed to have played a part in bringing Christianity to Scotland but this is probably erroneous as there is a far, far more plausible provenance than this which has several roots, all of which link together stemming from Macallan’s derivation from the ancient Gaelic name Colin or Cullen.
For one, The Mackenzie clan of which the Seaforth’s and the Grants were and are a branch, trace their descent to a certain Colin of Kintail (died 1278), and many centuries later, another Colin, the son of Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, who succeeded his father as the 2nd Lord Mackenzie in March 1611 was bestowed with the earldom of Seaforth in 1623, so Colin is very much a family name. MacCailean was also the patronymic used by Clan Campbell who is descended from Cailean Mór (d. 1296)
The Gaelic name is Cuilen or Cailean or Coileáin, as it is spelt in Irish Gaelic and it means ” cub”. We see the Scottish Gaelic ”Colin” as far back as the 14th century.
The name pops up just everywhere running like a motif through the Clan; for instance, Cullen House was the ancestral home and where James Ogilvy, the 6th Earl of Findlater and Seafield, grew up, for instance.
The Grant Clan maintained huge estates and they actually founded Grantown on Spey, close to Cullen in 1765. Not only were they responsible for creating many of the great Strathspey whiskies over the centuries, they actually largely built the area: Charles Grant of Wester Elchies actually founded the town of Aberlour, naming it after his son Charles. This is why its formal name is ”Charlestown of Aberlour”. He also builds Archiestown, situated on the other side of the Spey for his other son Archie. The Clan Grant has been responsible for or have managed a huge variety of whisky distilleries and were really the greatest force in the development of large scale commercial whisky distilling, particularly in their native Strathspey region, during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Alexander Reid formed the company Alexander Reid & Co in 1825, so a year after he had secured the distiller’s license and he remained head of the distillery, now known as Macallan, until his death in 1847 when he was succeeded by his son, also named Alexander. The next year, 1848, the younger Alexander brought in two new partners into the distillery: James Davidson and James Pierce and, on the younger Alexander’s death in 1858, Davidson and Pierce take over the company. They run Macallan for 10 years before signing an operating lease with the former corn merchant and serial whisky entrepreneur James Stuart, who went on to found Glenrothes and Glen Spey. Stuart eventually takes full control and organises a thorough rebuild of the distillery.
The 1870s spell trouble for Stuart due to the recession and bank crisis. The period which was known as the ”Long Depression” ensued, starting with the ”panic” of 1873. Demand for whisky slumped and Stuart accumulated substantial debts. He was saved from ruin by the phylloxera pest which hit in 1879 and which destroyed the French wine industry for a decade, leading to a brandy wipeout. Whisky filled the gap with consumers and the whisky industry rebounded despite the dire economy.
1892 is a seminal date as the new owner, Roderick Kemp, previously the owner of Talisker begins a further process of overseeing a revamp of the distillery and warehouse. As well as greatly expanding production, Kemp overseas a very important element of Macallan’s provenance: he starts importing high-quality Spanish sherry casks. Kemp had a reputation as a martinet and he is supposed to haunt Easter Elchies House to this very day!
Kemp died in 1909 but the company, which was renamed Macallan-Glenlivet in 1970 and which went public in 1968, remained in the hands of his descendants right throughout the two world wars, the depression and prohibition and was only sold to Highland Distillers Ltd in 1996.
Single malts, although not officially marketed, had been sitting around in casks at Macallan for many years and in 1986, the company released a very exclusive 60-year old. Here begins the vaunted tradition of Macallan special editions which lasts to this day.
In 1996 Highland Distillers acquired joint ownership of Macallan-Glenlivet. along with Suntory and then Highland is itself bought out by Edrington Group when it acquires Highland in 1999.
The so-called Six Pillars are the credo of Macallan and form a legendary part of the brand’s reputation. The Six Pillars are the foundation stones for the fame and character of The Macallan.
They are as follows 1) The ”Spiritual Home” which is, of course, Easter Elchies House and its 390 acres (158 hectares) grounds, from which the brand emanated and which sources the whisky to this day in terms of its water source and the barley that is grown on the site in a tradition that stretches right back to the founding days of Alexander Reid. Around 90 acres of barley of The Macallan’s own special variety, which is called Minstrel Barley). Each acre produces approximately two and a half tons of barley which in turn will yield something in the order of 1,800 bottles of The Macallan. The water source is natural spring water brought up through boreholes on the estate itself.
The local barley is grown in early spring and harvested in early autumn. It is malted and then goes for mashing for anything up to 8 hours in mash tuns. Yeast is then added for fermentation and then the mixture is distilled twice through the stills.
2) ”Curiously Small Stills”: small stills were once fairly ubiquitous in whisky-making but The Macallan is fairly unique in as far as it retains the tradition and these remain to this day the smallest stills used in Speyside The small copper stills allow more of the distillation to run up against the copper walls, enabling the spirit to keep its flavour.
3) ”The Finest Cut”: Here only around 16% of the final distillation is used to make whisky.
4) ”Exceptional Oak Casks”: The Macallan, as referenced above, has taken the art of casking to new heights, essentially developing it as a science in and of itself which is probably wise as casking influences the taste of a whisky so much.
5) ”Natural Colour”: The skilful process, including the casking, eliminates in its entirety any need for artificial or caramel colourings. That gorgeous taste and telltale red hue emerge naturally from the casking process.
6) “Peerless Spirit”: This expresses the spirit of perfection and of innovation at The Macallan, especially perhaps with regard to their special expressions, which are hugely sought after all over the globe.
A Macallan 78-year-old (their oldest release): The Red Collection sold in December 2020 for a hammer price of $92,581 and another 78-year old saw a hammer price of $120,661 in Oct 2020.
A 1928 Macallan 50-year-old sold on in September of 2020 with a Hammer Price: $108,930
A Macallan 60-year-old Linley Edition in Lalique sold in March 2020
at auction for $160,535
A bottle of Macallan 1926 60-year-old set a world record after it fetched £1.5 million (US$1.9m) at auction in 2019.
The whisky is so coveted because, despite expansions of the distillery, it is in such a huge global demand and has so many devotees. It’s not cheap, primarily because the casking process costs Macallan around ten times what most distilleries would part with.
The 12 year typically has a rich amber colour, some somewhat spicy and florally notes with a tad of vanilla, quite a strong sherry taste and there are some dried fruit moorishness and richness in evidence. It’s a light whisky, not tremendously complex, but gorgeously balanced and hugely enjoyable.