\nMacallan 12yo Fine Oak: 8.46 \u00b1 0.40 on 15 reviews ($$$$)
\nMacallan 15yo Fine Oak: 8.44 \u00b1 0.51 on 12 reviews ($$$$$)
\nMacallan 17yo Fine Oak: 8.78 \u00b1 0.50 on 11 reviews ($$$$$)
\nMacallan 18yo Fine Oak: 8.72 \u00b1 0.26 on 7 reviews ($$$$$)
\nMacallan 21yo Fine Oak: 8.51 \u00b1 0.40 on 6 reviews ($$$$$+)
\nMacallan 1824 Amber: 8.30 \u00b1 0.36 on 13 reviews ($$$)
\nMacallan 1824 Gold: 8.24 \u00b1 0.28 on 16 reviews ($$$)
\nMacallan 1824 Rare Cask: 8.70 \u00b1 0.40 on 10 reviews ($$$$$+)
\nMacallan 1824 Ruby: 8.76 \u00b1 0.21 on 13 reviews ($$$$$)
\nMacallan 1824 Sienna: 8.71 \u00b1 0.33 on 18 reviews ($$$$$)
\nMacallan Cask Strength: 8.93 \u00b1 0.35 on 16 reviews ($$$$$+)
\nMacallan Edition No. 1: 8.83 \u00b1 0.52 on 8 reviews ($$$$$)
\nMacallan Edition No. 2: 8.87 \u00b1 0.20 on 13 reviews ($$$$$)<\/strong>
\nMacallan Select Oak: 8.28 \u00b1 0.37 on 10 reviews ($$$)
\nMacallan Whisky Maker’s Edition: 8.53 \u00b1 0.36 on 13 reviews ($$$$)<\/p>\n
While not exactly cheap at $175 CAD, this is one the few releases of Macallan in recent years where I have not heard too many grumblings of the price relative to quality.<\/p>\n
Let’s see what I find in the glass:<\/p>\n
Nose<\/strong>: Delicious rich dark chocolate and creamy caramel, a great start. Fresh raisins and figs, with dried apple and pear. Brown sugar. Nutty and earthy, maybe some ginger. Definitely an unusual cask influence at work – there is something spicy here, more than typical barrel spice (chilies?). Vaguely solventy, almost sour, but that seems to go with the earthy component. Not your typical Macallan, this is a distinctive and complex nose.<\/p>\n Palate<\/strong>: The sweetness simplifies initially (i.e., white sugar), and the fruits turn more candied, with more prominent apple and pear. Citrus picks up now too (orange peel). Cinnamon. The earthiness seems to have lightened, leaving a very clean palate – with just a hint of something vegetal lurking in the background. Also very drinkable at the 48.2% ABV. It is almost watery in fact. Definitely not quite as complex as the nose, but pleasant. Some brown sugar comes back on the swallow.<\/p>\n Finish<\/strong>: Medium long. The spice comes back, a particularly oaky spice. Still very clean, with the simple candied fruitiness from the palate lasting a fairly long time.<\/p>\n Simpler than I expected, especially on the way out. But it has none of that typical youthful harshness of most NAS expressions. This is probably a good choice for those who like unusual casks expressions (e.g., fans of independent bottlers).\u00a0 It is also not at all your typical Macallan profile, thanks to the wider wood influence.<\/p>\n At the end of the day, I can’t help but think that this would have been spectacular had it been aged for longer. I think the Meta-Critic average score is reasonable.<\/p>\n The guys at Quebec Whisky are big fans of this edition, as are Serge of Whisky Fun<\/a>, Ruben of Whisky Notes<\/a>, and Emma of Whiskey Reviewer<\/a>. On Reddit, Devoz<\/a>, Ethanized,<\/a> throwboats<\/a>, xile_<\/a> and MajorHop<\/a> all love this edition. muaddi99<\/a> is a little less enthusiastic. cjotto9<\/a> and Sinjun86<\/a>, as well as Beppi Crossariol of the Globe & Mail<\/a>, give it an average score. I’ve not actually seen a negative review of this whisky, among my reviewer set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Macallan Edition is an annual limited series. Each year, Macallan releases a new Edition that is based on a unique selection of oak cask styles for that year’s release. As an extra wrinkle, each year is to be a co-creation with different partners. Edition No. 2 was released in 2017, and the new no. 3 is just coming out now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[90,18,141,29,17],"class_list":["post-5017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whiskies","tag-macallan","tag-nas","tag-scottish","tag-sherry","tag-single-malt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5017"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5260,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions\/5260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Macallan.Edition.No_.2.jpg\")
<\/a>With water, you get a simpler nose – raisin fruitiness is increased, earthiness decreased. Sweeter in mouth as well. Doesn’t need it in my view.<\/p>\n