As true believers of the work hard, play hard mantra, we present you with It’s Been a Long Week, a weekly column aimed at awarding some liquid appreciation to you for just being yourself, dammit. Make yourself a glass or two, on us — you deserve it.
Fall quickly whisked away summer from us this past week and on top of that, there’s a full moon tonight set to close its cycle of the past six months. We all need a drink! Moving on from low-ABV cocktails and summer spitzes it is time to cheers with a good Scottish whisky with a lemon twist. Macallan‘s New York Sour is the ideal way to ease into cozy fall vibes with a guaranteed pleasant companion.
Sotheby’s will offer the most valuable collection of whisky ever to be offered at auction this fall with 394 lots, 467 bottles, and nine casks from a private American collector. The online bidding will start on September 27th with a live auction on October 24th in West Kensington, London. Showcasing the most impressive range of Scotch whisky to come to the market, the collection is estimated to bring in at least £4 million ($4.8 million).
The collection is led by The Macallan bottlings comprise half of the auction with it’s fine and rare spirits. The most notable is a 178-bottle collection of Macallan Fine and Rare from 1926 to 1991. The Macallan 1926, in particular, comes from cask #263 which had yielded in only 40 bottles making it the ultimate ‘holy grail’ of whisky. In the past years, three versions from Cask 263 have broken all records at auction. There are also personally labeled bottles, ones under private labels, and one hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon. Sotheby’s also commissioned two bespoke hand-made cabinets to fit two complete Macallan in Lalique Six Pillars Collections. The stunning decanters will be housed in locked walnut cabinets as a true discovery for the whisky lover. The range will also offer a collection of rare miniature bottles.
The Macallan 50 Year, Lalique Edition Six Pillars Collection (x 2) to be offered in exclusively commissioned bespoke, hand-made cabinets designed by British craftsman James Laycock. Estimate £300,000-450,000/ $350,000-500,000 per lot.
The Macallan Fine and Rare Miniature Bottles, 43%, 46 in total to be offered in an exclusively commissioned lockable wall-mounted cabinet, designed by British craftsman James Laycock. Estimate £55,000-88,000 / $65,000-100,000.
Alongside The Macallan, the oldest bottlings from Bowmore, The Dalmore, Glenfiddich, and others are showcased in their best expressions.
Featured photo by Paolo Pellegrin | Courtesy of Magnum Photos.
What do you do when you have the world’s best whisky on hand, a subterranean distillery being built, and aversion to any kind of traditional advertising moments? You call over Magnum Photos to document the process and bottle it into an exclusive collection piece whisky. Ken Grier, creative director at The Macallan at the Edrington Group, did just that and took the bottle for a liquid appreciation trip through Mexico.
With Grier at the helm since 1999, Macallan has witnessed some of the brands most creative collaborations, three Guinness Records for the most expensive bottles on record, and a new distillery that is almost 100% sustainable on a normal day. Jumping on the collaboration bandwagon, Macallan turned to its longstanding relationship with Magnum to document the progression of the building through one of the most historic uses of photography — architectural documentation.
Photo by Paolo Pellegrin | Courtesy of Magnum Photo.
The summation of the four-year construction is bottled in a single malt made from a combination of eight casks, each representing the particularities of each photographer. A special edition bottle, an exclusive book with images from the construction site, and a selection of six signed prints are packed into an object d’art box as the newest addition to the Masters of Photography series. “We have a DNA and a heritage and we are trying to do stuff that’s meaningful and interesting,” says Grier and so he made the ultimate cabinet of whisky curiosities.
Image: Courtesy of Macallan.
“A photography project about the construction of the distillery has a potentially very small audience of interest — Macallan, but if the work you make is also about the act of seeing and the act of photography then that opens a whole other audience,” says one of the photographers, Marc Power. “This has a life beyond.” Power took an extraordinarily careful, zen-like approach to when capturing the construction even though he was usually knee-deep in mud with his wife holding an umbrella over him. Each photographer took their specialty and brought it to the table with their individual point of view without a defined brief ahead of them from Macallan itself.
Photos by Marc Power | Courtesy of Magnum Photos.
Launched in Mexico City, the photo exhibit spent a few weeks at a gallery before the bottle set out for other Mexican destinations full with a 4D VR visit to the distillery and a mandatory tasting, of course. “People like to discover their own trends. They like to learn through experience,” says Grier. His entire approach to the brand has been unconventional from day one. “I think there is a lot more interest in people having different enriching experiences and people get a lot more quality and craft from the experience.”
Marc Power and Ken Grier | Courtesy of Macallan.
Enamored with the drink itself, Grier is also quite the rebel with a sort of teenage desire to do exactly what seems impossible. A distillery upgraded straight out of Teletubbyland? Sounds about right as a culmination of a brilliant career with outstanding achievements at the spirit brand which he is set to depart.
The Macallan 4D Cube | Photo: Courtesy of Wes Tarca
While The Macallan hasn’t figured out a way to bring everyone physically over to Scotland, they’ve brought over Scotland and the new distillery in a 4D immersive experience at Grand Central Station, and the scotch too (of course)– in an interactive, tasting nature. The Macallan Double Cask 12 Years Old and new Edition No.4 are available for sampling throughout the experience.
The Macallan (cue Scottish accent here) is one of Scotland’s leading single-malt whisky producers and now, the greenest one too with their new distillery that is in many ways environmentally friendly. It took four years to and a splurge of $186 million to build, but the new space an absolute haven for the 300,000 maturing casks and endless collection of vintages that The Macallan is known for. Sláinte!
Photo: Courtesy of Ryan Kobane
The Macallan Distillery and Visitor Experience at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal (Wednesday and Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and Friday noon to 4 p.m.)
