The Macallan

The Macallan is one of Scotland's most popular distilleries. Its rare, aged bottlings have become some of the world’s most collected and expensive whiskies. Based in Craigellachie in the Highlands, The Macallan distillery was founded in 1824 by farmer Alexander Reid and became one of the few licensed distilleries following the Excise Act of 1923.

In 1868, James Stuart took over the distillery and rebuilt it. Stuart ran the site until 1892, when Roderick Kemp, a distilling giant who previously owned the Talisker distillery, took over and led the distillery to success.

Kemp’s ancestors managed The Macallan for over a century, greatly expanding the distillery – increasing the number of stills from six to 21 between 1965 and 1975. In 1986, Suntory bought out a quarter of the stocks, with Highland Distillers buying out the rest in 1994. The distillery changed hands again in 1999, when Edrington took control and The Macallan has been largely responsible for the company’s unprecedented growth.

In 2018 The Macallan opened a smart modern distillery (which cost £140 million to build); but production remains as traditional as ever. It produces around 15 million litres each year from some of the smallest stills in commercial use in Speyside. At just shy of 13 feet in height, the small and squat shape of the stills enables maximum copper contact and little-to-no reflux, resulting in the characteristically rich, fruity and oily new-make Macallan spirit.

The 24 stills are also run incredibly slowly – at a trickle – and The Macallan only takes 16% of the final spirit from the stills to fill its casks. When the new £140 million distillery was built in 2018, The Macallan commissioned the famous coppersmith company Forsyths to faithfully replicate the existing stills, down to the last dent. The 24 stills are designed to be exact replicas and the distillery maintains the new spirit will be unchanged.

Sitting on a plateau above the river Spey, the water comes from springs beneath the estate (a massive 485 acres).

The Macallan’s reputation was built on the use of Sherry casks. Indeed, until 2004 it used exclusively Sherry casks, but then introduced the “Fine Oak” series, which was aged in ex-Bourbon and Sherry casks. Extremely conscious of the importance of the quality of barrels, The Macallan has a dedicated Master of Wood, Stuart MacPherson, who is in charge of sourcing and making the casks used. There is no colour adjustment here – depending entirely on the colour given to spirit by the barrel.

It produces a very classic expression of the typical Speyside style – soft, full and quite fruity single malts.