Macallan

This is another of the top Speyside distilleries, and still not part of one of the big conglomerates. The distillery began production as the Elchies Distillery in 1824 alongside the house of the same name, but was re-built in 1892 and renamed to The Macallan after a church that it replaced.

It has survived - just - under several regimes and is currently owned by Highland Distillers who purchased it in 1996. It produces some of the most distinctive and high quality single malts that come from Speyside. They also have a very good distillery shop which contains some significant old bottles from the Victorian era, they do tours but I'd suggest ringing first as I've been twice and have yet to go on one. The web site is pretty good to: www.themacallan.com

One thing that makes The Macallan malts so distinctive is the small size of their stills, they do have lots of them, and they vary in their quality, unlike the final product which is pretty near perfect.

The classic strong Speyside malt. The Macallan is strong, oaky with a long sherry like finish. The malt comes in various ages, 7, 10, 12, 18 and 25 years, it is definitely one that improves with age, unfortunately it also gets expensive (the 25 year old can fetch as much as Ł100). The 10 and 18 year olds are excellent and more affordable. They do quite a number of specials now too, cashing in on the new collecting vogue as you can see from below. Whilst I'd be surprised if the distillery closed, these specials will still carry a certain notoriety due to the quality of the distillery.