Review #23: Speymalt Macallan 2007

Distillery: Macallan

Bottler: Gordon & MacPhail

Region: Speyside

ABV: 43%

Age: 9ish Year (No age statement but marked as distilled in 2007 and bottled in 2016)

Price: $5 for a 50 mL sample

Color: 0.5, Yellow Gold

Nose (according to the wife): Extremely fragrant, smells like a bouquet of flowers or floral tea. She really liked the nose on this.

Palate: Really bitter (malt or yeast perhaps?) and dry with a bit of floral tea. The sherry/fruity sweetness you expect out of a good Speyside/Macallan is completely absent from this. Not what I expected whatsoever. The label indicates this is pretty young (at most 9 years) but man does it show. It’s really, really hot and burns a lot.

Finish: The finish is medium to long which is nice. It is really dry though with some of that same malty-yeasty bitterness.

Conclusion: I was really excited to try a IB Macallan. I really shouldn’t have been as this one disappointed. While I expected it to be rough around the edges being so young, I thought it would’ve been better than this. None of the expected notes (or even hints of them) from a Speyside malt are there while you’re just left with a really unpleasant bitterness that lasts from start to finish. The delightful floral nose is the only redeeming factor which leads me to wonder if this was a test batch for what eventually became The Macallan Edition No. 3.

Final Score: 65

Scotch whisky review #23, Speyside whisky review #10, Whisky Network Review #29

Scoring Legend:

• 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
• 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
• 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection.
• 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
• 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
• 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
• 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
• Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.