Origin: Speyside (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 44%ABV
Ageing casks: Sherry seasoned American and European oak
Chillfiltered: Yes
Added coloring: No
Owner: Edrington Group
Average price: € 300.00
Official website: www.themacallan.com
Vote: 78/100
After tasting both versions of the third edition of the Harmony Collection, let’s take a nice step back in time to the initial pair in the series, dedicated to cocoa.
First bottling, released at the end of 2021, whose main theme is obviously cocoa, not only in the evocations that the whisky is supposed to create (thanks to the choice of casks with cocoa notes to compose it), but in the packaging, where the box and label have been created using 15% of the discarded shells of cocoa beans, as part of a greater focus on environmental sustainability.
Mention is also made of the collaboration with Jordi Roca, known for having run the renowned restaurant El Celler de Can Roca with his brother and who now runs the Casa Cacao chocolate factory in Girona, who gave whisky maker Polly Logan a tour of chocolate production.
Released at an already considerable price of around €120.00, it has now obviously tripled if not tenfold between shops and the secondary market.
Tasting Notes
No pain au chocolat, but the nose rather evokes a brioche bun (the industrial kind, complete with a whiff of preservative alcohol), with some candied fruit including orange, goji berries, mango and apricot. In the background, small hints of fruit (peach, gooseberry, currant) on a solid herbaceous and floral compartment of cereals, hay, linden blossoms, crossed by veins of honey, toffee and slight inflections of wood. Pleasant, if a little pungent.
On the palate, it offers a light push of pepper and ginger, with a sprinkling of nutmeg, on a thin body in which the red fruit notes are accompanied by some citrus touches (orange and lemon), nuts, marzipan, wood and an impression of coffee grounds. At length, some cocoa powder emerges… or perhaps it is just suggestion, so faint is it. The artificial sensation of alcohol accompanies the whole drink.
The finish is quite short and dry, astringent, of red fruits, wood, nuts.
Whether or not I found in the glass the suggestions promised by the name (and evidently I didn’t), it remains an evanescent, flat whisky, with an alcoholic presence bordering on the annoying and lacking any depth.