MACALLAN, THE FINE & RARE COLLECTION
There is perhaps no other whisky distillery in the world with a historic memory like Macallan. A memory that has survived through times when there was no interest in archives and marketing offices hadn’t been invented yet, a memory that has survived thanks to the farsightedness of collectors and enthusiasts who have preserved and handed down their treasures. Even when Scotch Whisky was far less popular than now and the collecting
phenomenon was far more limited, time and patience were already the central themes of Macallan’s communication.
Just think of that evocative advert from the 1980s where the sleeping cask rejects the bottle lusting after its precious nectar because “not enough time has passed”. Mindful of the past and making the most of a favourable market in recent years, Macallan has launched some new and extremely rare bottlings, including some very old aging stock, over half a century old in some cases, and vintages dating back to the 1920s.
The Fine & Rare series is Macallan’s tribute to this liquid memory that has its roots in a distant past.
Launched in 2002 with twenty or so bottles, the Fine & Rare collection starts with a 1926 vintage, a bottle containing whisky that has been maturing for over sixty years. To set the scene, when this whisky was poured from the still, we would have been in the peak of Prohibition in America; we might have seen the first automatic traffic lights installed in London or even the first televised images shown in public by Scotsman John Logie Baird; we might have heard about the Nobel prize for literature being awarded to Grazia Deledda on the radio or read about the death of Rodolph Valentino. This long aging period and time have only saved forty bottles from 1926. In 2007, this bottling began to set records and was sold by Christie’s in New York for 54,000 dollars.
The collection is added to each year and currently includes over fifty references from the 1920s to the 1990s. Each bottle, which clearly displays the year of distillation, is logged and traced from the distillery. In January 2016, 19 bottles from between 1938 and 1974 were sold at the International Airport of Dubai for over 360,000 dollars. In December 2016, a vintage series from the Fine & Rare collection, dating from 1937 to 1990, sold along with the Macallan Golden Age of Travel and Macallan Select Reserve 1946 to an Asian collector for 500,000 dollars. In 2014, the largest collection of Macallan Fine & Rare, composed of forty bottles with vintages from 1937 to 1972, sold for 430,000 dollars in New York. Last November, three bottles from a passionate collector in Liguria, vintages 1951, 1961 and 1973 with 51, 40 and 30 years of maturing respectively, sold for a total of 30,000 euros.
The Fine & Rare collection is just one example of why Macallan is the collector’s whisky par excellence and of how the distillery wants to keep a strong focus on the brand despite it moving into large-scale production from a purely commercial perspective.
by Davide Terziotti
phenomenon was far more limited, time and patience were already the central themes of Macallan’s communication.
Just think of that evocative advert from the 1980s where the sleeping cask rejects the bottle lusting after its precious nectar because “not enough time has passed”. Mindful of the past and making the most of a favourable market in recent years, Macallan has launched some new and extremely rare bottlings, including some very old aging stock, over half a century old in some cases, and vintages dating back to the 1920s.
The Fine & Rare series is Macallan’s tribute to this liquid memory that has its roots in a distant past.
Launched in 2002 with twenty or so bottles, the Fine & Rare collection starts with a 1926 vintage, a bottle containing whisky that has been maturing for over sixty years. To set the scene, when this whisky was poured from the still, we would have been in the peak of Prohibition in America; we might have seen the first automatic traffic lights installed in London or even the first televised images shown in public by Scotsman John Logie Baird; we might have heard about the Nobel prize for literature being awarded to Grazia Deledda on the radio or read about the death of Rodolph Valentino. This long aging period and time have only saved forty bottles from 1926. In 2007, this bottling began to set records and was sold by Christie’s in New York for 54,000 dollars.
The collection is added to each year and currently includes over fifty references from the 1920s to the 1990s. Each bottle, which clearly displays the year of distillation, is logged and traced from the distillery. In January 2016, 19 bottles from between 1938 and 1974 were sold at the International Airport of Dubai for over 360,000 dollars. In December 2016, a vintage series from the Fine & Rare collection, dating from 1937 to 1990, sold along with the Macallan Golden Age of Travel and Macallan Select Reserve 1946 to an Asian collector for 500,000 dollars. In 2014, the largest collection of Macallan Fine & Rare, composed of forty bottles with vintages from 1937 to 1972, sold for 430,000 dollars in New York. Last November, three bottles from a passionate collector in Liguria, vintages 1951, 1961 and 1973 with 51, 40 and 30 years of maturing respectively, sold for a total of 30,000 euros.
The Fine & Rare collection is just one example of why Macallan is the collector’s whisky par excellence and of how the distillery wants to keep a strong focus on the brand despite it moving into large-scale production from a purely commercial perspective.
by Davide Terziotti