The Macallan’s New 40-Year-Old Whisky Is a Tribute to Its 1926 Vintage
A century ago, a barrel was filled with new make spirit at the Macallan, aged for 60 years, and bottled in 1986. That whisky would go on to set a record as being the most valuable bottle of whisky to be sold at auction when it was purchased for about $2.7 million dollars in 2023 (a bottle of Irish whiskey from the Craft Irish Whiskey Co. beat that by about $100,000 a year later). To commemorate the 1926 vintage, and perhaps to one day rival its auction sale, the distillery is releasing the new Romantica Collection, which comes a single cask of whisky distilled in 1986 and aged for 40 years. Robb Report spoke to master distiller Euan Kennedy to find out more about this new extremely limited release.
The Romantica Collection consists of 258 bottles that came from cask number 9925, a sherry-seasoned European oak barrel that spent the last 40 years maturing at the distillery, bottled at 48.6 percent ABV. Compare that to the Macallan 1926, which as mentioned before was aged for 60 years and yielded just 40 bottles (or at least that was all that was released). According to Kennedy, this project was five years in the making, and the whisky is unique in that it is actually slightly smoky, an uncommon characteristic for the Macallan. “When we received the creative brief, we knew we wanted to go with a whisky from 1986 to tell that story, and there was only one cask it could be,” he told Robb Report. “The whisky itself in terms of character is quite unusual for the Macallan, carrying just a touch of peat smoke. It is remarkable that you can get that sense of being transported back to a different generation through this particular cask, which is one of the reasons why we selected it.”
Three artists designed the labels for the Macallan 1926—Sir Peter Blake (who designed the sleeve for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with his wife Jann Haworth), Valerio Adami, and Michael Dillon—and they have returned for this new collection as well, with each artist’s work appearing on 86 bottles. Blake’s label is a collage called “The Music Room,” meant to represent the distillery’s Easter Elchies House; Adami’s “Romantica” is a portrait of Janet ‘Nettie’ Harbinson, who was the Macallan’s custodian in 1926; Dillon’s label is “The Macallan Estate,” a painting of the distillery itself.
Of course, the Romantica Collection is not a recreation of the Macallan 1926, which would obviously be an impossible task. Instead, it’s meant to evoke the spirit of the distillery at that time and to try to capture what that release meant to the Macallan. “What I love about it is that those who made the whisky at that time—Janet ‘Nettie’ Harbinson, who actually laid down the spirit in 1926—did not realize the significance this particular cask of whisky was going to have,” said Kennedy. “It is less about what the whisky meant and more about what the whisky continues to be for me… The 1926 is not something we reference every day, but when you take a step back and think about the significance of what we do today, a whisky like this is at the forefront of our inspiration and we always look to continue that legacy.”
Samples of this whisky were not made available (no surprise given its rarity), but the official tasting notes are as follows: brown sugar, glazed peach, tropical lychee, dark cherries, treacle, and a subtle hint of peat on the palate, followed by lingering notes of dried fruit, leather, and cacao on the finish. The brand would not reveal what the price of the bottles will be, only that they will be sold as a set of three that includes each artist edition starting on July 30. Interested parties can contact the Macallan Client Services to find out more about purchasing a set.
