The Macallan Wood Story

“The world’s most precious whisky” How aptly The Macallan tagline sounds. Whisky making is a delicate process from barley to the final product of a bottle of The Macallan spanning over a decade and more. Wood is by far the most important element in the making of The Macallan, which contributes around 60% of the flavours of The Macallan. The journey began from Jerez, Spain, the home of sherry wines. The Macallan has a long standing working relationship with Tevasa cooperage, producers of Spanish Oak casks. (Close to 80% of Tevasa’s production goes to The Macallan) The Macallan’s casks are hand-built for the distillery and therefore allows tracing of the lineage of the cask from wood to warehouse to ensure ultimate quality rather than buying from the open market. Being part of The Edrington Group, comprising of The Macallan, Highland Park, Famous Grouse and Cutty Sark, the group is the largest importer of Spanish Sherry Oak casks into Scotland to age their whiskies. It is a high cost investment considering a Sherry Oak cask costs around 600€, ten times more than usual bourbon oak casks preferred by most other distilleries.

Accompanied by Narciso Fernandez Iturrospe, owner of Tevasa cooperage, we toured around his facilities starting out at the cooperage backyard, where tonnes of staves are laid to dry before being sent to the workshop. These staves had been transported from the forests of northern Spain, where the Quercus Robur Oaks are found.

Inside the workshop, dozens of muscular coopers helm the respective stations from cutting, arranging, assembling, toasting and polishing. The tedious manual process ensures the perfect construction of a cask with the little aid of some machinery on site.

After the casks are made, they are sent to be filled with Sherries at the Gonzalez Byass bodegas, producers of Tio Pepe brand of Sherries.

Using Palomino grapes harvested from the hills of Jerez every summer, the fortified wine matures in the casks for a period of 3 years. Once the Sherries are emptied and bottled for sales, the Sherry Oak casks are now seasoned and transported to The Macallan distillery in Scotland.

Here at The Macallan distillery and back to the whisky making process, barley are harvested, malted, milled and mashed. The sugary solutions are then fermented and distilled in the famous Curiously Small Stills of The Macallan.

	After distillation, the new make spirits are then filled into the pre-seasoned oak casks for aging in the warehouses. The majority of casks used are the Spanish Sherry Oak casks, while other variants such as the American White Oak Sherry casks and American Bourbon Oak casks are also used for The Macallan Fine Oak series.

After the maturation period, depending on the expressions required for bottling, the casks will then come under the careful selection of the whisky making team headed by The Macallan Master of Spirit, Bob Dalgarno. Although theoretically with all ingredients being the same, whisky from various casks still varies slightly as nature dictates the interaction process between the whisky and the wood. Dalgarno and his team would then select casks from different batch to come together to ‘marry’ (single malt’s don’t like the connotation of blend) and sent for bottling to ensure the consistent natural colour and taste.

From timber to the whisky in your tumbler, whisky making is an arduous creation process brought to you by the fine team of people at The Macallan. On behalf of The Macallan, to every whisky aficionados out there, Slàinte! * Slàinte meaning Cheers in Gaelic