This is the first "real" single malt Scotch I purchased for myself, for the express purpose of sipping and learning and appreciating. It was on sale at a local liquor store for a price I then considered "reasonable" - $36 or so - and when seeing it against the value of the other Macallan bottlings (whose pricing has no real upper limits, it would seem), it appeared to be a steal.
Well, folks, when a distiller has options that cost $50, $75, $120, $250, $400+, it is a safe bet that the $36 option is somehow the hindmost of the line, the straggler, the little forgotten wallflower. Yet I distinctly remember I grabbed the next-to-last bottle on the shelf, while the vaunted 18 Year had nary a one missing. I guess when Macallan goes on sale, people go a-buying.
THE Macallan, that is. Another one of those distilleries who adhere to the definite article, as mentioned before in reviews of The Dalmore and The Balvenie, et al. I tend to drop said article whenever practical, out of a sense of simplicity and perhaps a roguish anti-authoritarian bent all my own.
The Macallan distillery has been one of the most preeminent Speyside whiskies for many many years. While it may not move the pure mass and volume that the giants Glenfiddich and Glenlivet do, the name is sterling among whisky circles and their level of consistency year to year is second to none. And they are always pushing hard at the Glenfiddich/Glenlivet hegemony - some reports in recent years have them at number two.
I will review some Glenfiddich and more Glenlivet fare in short order, but it's safe to say that Macallan has a cachet that the other two do not quite possess. Scotch drinkers, generally, will lump Macallan in with the Big Dogs of Single Malt, and often turn to smaller, stranger, more idiosyncratic distillers; but at the same time, it's impossible to ignore that virtually all the major and most of the minor distillers are currently owned by some corporate conglomerate or another.
Macallan itself was purchased by the Edrington Group back in 2009, makers of Famous Grouse, Cutty Sark (the first blend I ever encountered), and the more prestigious Highland Park, whose 12 Year I liked quite a bit. Edrington is, according to Wikipedia, the single most profitable private company in Scotland (!).
So we return to the bottle at hand. Aged ten years in three varieties of "fine oak" barrels - European oak, American oak from bourbon and American oak from sherry - this is the most junior of the entire Macallan line. Let's see what that means, exactly.
Nose: Sweet nose, and nutty. No pepper or other "oak" notes - instead, I get honey and/or caramel, almonds, and a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg. Some fruit flesh, I suppose, but generic, and might easily also be heather or another herbal note. The nose isn't defined enough to differentiate.
Mouthfeel: Of a medium thinness, perhaps not ideally balanced.
Palate: Here is the oak - a dry pepper note intermingles with a delicate fruitiness. Very little follow-through from the nose, actually. The fruit is not big rich sweet fruit, but dried fruit, like fruit jerky. Dried apples, some raisins, no real citrus. There is a certain caramel note here, but it plays hide-and-seek and never really emerges. The alcohol is very broad and hard, and the cereal malt is present on every third or fourth sip. The pepper/oakiness is too hot and dry and tends to outmuscle the other flavors.
Finish: All the oaks pop in for the finale - pepper, a very long dryness, and an odd salt note I didn't expect.
Verdict: Reviewing Scotch is a strange game. You take sip after sip and it's quite easy to get completely lost in the process. Sometimes you'll come back to a whisky and get something totally new and odd - and that is part of the joy and the mystery. And then you have to make some kind of recommendation based on all the flavors and the price and whatnot. And with the Macallan marquee looming over everything, it's harder still to say...
...that the verdict here is Not Recommended. The oak elements are rather harsh and imbalanced, and overpower the delicate fruit, the caramel from the bourbon, the nuttiness from the sherry, the nice cinnamon that came through once in a while. Too much alcohol, too brash and young, too peppery. Even at $36, there are much better options (like Edrington's own Highland Park 12 Year).
Link to the website for Macallan 10 Year: http://www.themacallan.com/the-whisky/fine-oak/10-years-old/
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