Review #40: Macallan 12yr Highland Single Malt

I thought they killed this.

I thought that this was being replaced by the color-words ('Ruby', 'Sienna', 'Cerulean'), but it seems to be living on, at least here in the States. (This is 'exclusively aged in sherry casks from Jerez', or something to that effect, and not the 'Fine Oak.') In fact, out shopping I saw someone loading up a (literal) shopping cart full of them not too long ago. Anyway, my impression is that it's been going downhill and simultaneously up in price for a long time now, so this is probably the only review of Macallan that I'll ever do.

But I have two open bottles, bought quite far apart both geographically and temporally. So I thought it might be interesting to compare them.

bottle #1 (I think this is older, bought on the east coast)

dried fruit and marshmallows quickly turn to vegetal and slightly rubbery sherry notes. a lot of aspirin and wet slate. a bit of smoke and some jammy/candied fruit comes in slowly. initially bitter and weak on the palate, but then becomes malty and sweet. there's a brief blast of sulfur, but then the finish is the best part: pralines, vanilla, wood glue, and chestnuts.

bottle #2 (I think I bought this ~2 yrs ago, on the west coast)

sweeter, more candied nose (Armagnac-type fruit), without any grassiness. Some bitter almonds and slate come through, but mostly it's just the sweet fruit. On the palate it's just cooked-fruit cotton candy plus bitterness. I want to say the bitterness is expressive (coffee grounds?), but I think it's just bitter. There's a little maltiness, but I get the impression that the malt is mostly just working as preservative for the sherry. Nothing special on the finish.

Bottle #2 is a completely undistinguished but unflawed sherried whisky. The first one is a little more interesting -- probably more interesting than a standard bottling deserves to be -- but not exceptional. They're certainly different, in any case. Let's average the two.

score: 81