Macallan has always had a slightly curious relationship with size. Today it is one of the most recognisable names in Scotch, produced in a £140 million distillery of almost geological proportions, yet the spirit itself owes much of its character to remarkably small stills and a deliberately narrow spirit cut.

The story began rather more modestly in 1824, when farmer Alexander Reid obtained a licence to distil at Easter Elchies, above the River Spey near Craigellachie. The estate’s handsome Easter Elchies House, completed in its present form around 1700, remains at the heart of the site. James Stuart rebuilt the distillery after taking the lease in 1868, before selling it in 1892 to Roderick Kemp, the formidable Victorian whisky man who had previously owned Talisker. Kemp’s descendants retained an interest for more than a century. Highland Distillers took control in 1996, with Edrington becoming Macallan’s owner in 1999.

Macallan’s small, squat stills and sharply descending lyne arms provide relatively little opportunity for copper to lighten the spirit, helping create a substantial, oily new make with plenty of fruit. That weight has historically found its partner in sherry casks, particularly large European oak butts. Macallan went unusually far in controlling its wood supply, specifying oak, cooperage, seasoning wine, and seasoning periods for casks made specifically for the distillery.

The vast new distillery, opened in 2018 beneath an undulating grass-covered roof, may look thoroughly modern, but the underlying equation remains reassuringly old-fashioned: weighty spirit, patient maturation, and rather a lot of very carefully chosen oak.
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