Even in my short lifetime, I have been witness to the Macallan brand doubling down on the pursuit of utterly stupid money. As a businessman, I don’t begrudge them at all, but as a drinker, I’ve been disappointed to feel left out of the party.
Macallan, to their credit, has embraced new-world marketing in such a way that no other single malt comes close. It’s the official drink of James Bond (or at least it was when Skyfall was being marketed). They saw the potential inherent in the Chinese market, went after it, and are now probably the biggest aspirational booze brand to a country of about 1.4 billion.
“Macallan has figured out how to make a non-age-stated Scotch taste rich, in both senses of the word. ”
If you watch the superb “Better Call Saul,” you might have noticed an example of how well the creators know the world of liquor. Jimmy celebrates a win with margaritas. His well-to-do brother Chuck and Chuck’s legal partner Howard, on the other hand, crack into rare bottle of Macallan when they want to take a victory lap. I had originally thought they were drinking the Macallan 25, which is an astonishing $1,800 a bottle. After some quick research, I realized it was actually a bottle of Macallan 1966—aged for 35 years—which carries a price of more than $50,000. Because of course they would.
As a result of these little moments, Macallan is nearly as well-known as Johnny Walker Blue Label. But where Blue Label has entered the consciousness of the layperson as “the best” scotch, long-aged Macallan has infiltrated the world of hedge fund managers and guys who own yachts as the beverage to give and be given. It’s the official brand of the utterly bonkers, private island, 1% of the 1%, “Do you know who you’re talking to?” kind of money.
The problem is that with the supply of whisky being stretched as it is, Macallan is faced with a problem: there’s only so much 18-to-35 year old whisky at any time. As part of that realization, the distillery made an ill-fated attempt back in 2012 to try to introduce a “color” range to most of the world. If you were in one of those markets, rather than finding the 10, 12, 15, or 17 on the shelves, for example, you’d find a range of colors that generally corresponded to what a whisky looked like at that age. In order, gold, amber, sienna, and ruby. So I’d heard it described, anyway. Even if it wasn’t an outright replacement, at the very least the brand extension seemed transparent in its desire to wean customers off numbers.
Needless to say, worldwide consumers didn’t take to the idea and the line was quietly discontinued. Macallan apparently knew better than to try that gimmicky shit here in America, and so I never had the opportunity to taste any of that range. I bring it up only to illustrate how tricky it is to brand yourself as a luxury product and also not tell people the age of what they’re actually paying for.
So enter the Macallan number series, which I had imagined was another failed bid to get us to pay upper-age-statement prices for younger (and presumably not as good) whisky. Imagine my surprise when the first release, the No.1, was very well-regarded by some very picky communities of scotch fans. Three years later, I decided to splurge on the No.4.
Getting right into it, I think Macallan has finally figured out a lot of pieces. First, it tastes rich in both senses of the term. It’s definitely a sumptuous scotch, full-flavored and powerful. But it also tastes like people expect a scotch to at the upper tiers of pricing—that is to say, having immense influence from sherry casks. In the glass, Macallan No.4 gives you candied fruits to burn, with peaches, raisins, dates, and nectarines all combining together to create a veritable fruit cocktail of flavors. There’s a very nice development into nutmeg and baking chocolate, and the finish is appropriately sumptuous and long.
With a little water, the No.4 opens up very nicely. I preferred it this way by far: many of the tastes gel together and there’s a wonderful orange note that comes through to balance out all of the other red and orchard fruits. If ever there’s a good example of a whisky taking water like a champ and going from good-to-better, it’s this.
Macallan also meets you in the middle: they don’t give you a lot of information about age, but you are getting a 48% ABV whisky and a lot of provenance to justify a price tag north of $100. Which, admittedly, is not eye-popping money when we’re talking Macallan. The packaging reveals quite a bit about where the sherry casks came from, whether they were first or second fill, and how much went into the final product as a percentage.
I mean, this is all pretty cool!
That’s a lot of wood geekery.
In the end, the Macallan No.4 was a little splurgy, but not too much so. The number series is a great way to taste the parts of the Macallan legacy that are well-deserved without having to sacrifice an arm and a leg in the process. The world would be a better place if every non-age-stated bottle were as carefully considered and constructed as this one is. It’s good to have a Macallan on my shelf that I think is finally worth the money.
