Origin: Speyside (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 44.2%ABV
Ageing casks: Ex-Bourbon and ex-Sherry seasoned
Chillfiltered: Yes
Added coloring: No
Owner: Edrington Group
Average price: € 250.00
Official website: www.themacallan.com
Vote: 82/100
The third edition of the Harmony Collection, following on from those dedicated to cocoa and arabica, sees Scottish nature at the centre of the two bottlings, Green Meadow and this Amber Meadow.
With sustainability always at the heart of this series, the packaging and label have been made using discarded meadow cuttings, while the launch was made in collaboration with sisters Stella and Mary McCartney (yes, his daughters), who also made a set of glasses and other glasswares to accompany the bottles, in the brand’s usual policy of linking its name to well-known faces in the luxury world.
Let’s leave aside the experience on which Macallan relies so much and come to the contents of this bottling, which wants to represent autumn as its brother embodies spring, in the ageing of which ex-bourbon casks appear alongside the usual sherry seasoned casks, all for an unspecified lenght as always.
Tasting notes
On the nose, it is chestnut honey embraced by vanilla that starts in the glass, with hints of red fruits (currants, raspberries), dried apricots, coconut, argan oil, almonds. Vegetal and slightly floral veining in the base. The soft, warm notes are in a constant battle for supremacy with the pungent, herbaceous ones, losing out in length on points.
The enveloping part, which struggled to hold its position on the nose, capitulates definitively on the palate, swept away by the acidulous notes of the red fruits that take the stage, with the help of the herbaceous part (green tea, eucalyptus), fruit (green apple, pear, almond), lemon peel, ginger, a touch of malt and mentholated afflatus.
The finish is quite long, in which the herbaceous and sherried parts chase each other, together with bitter notes of cinchona, almonds, hints of caramel and wood.
A promising nose that doesn’t hold up on the palate, even in its autumnal evocation it only half succeeds, choosing to tread already known paths and with a basic youth that leaves no room for depth.