L I B AT I O N S
A SPIRIT ABOVE
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Nic Wallace pours a Smoke on the Spey, a Macallan cocktail flavored with smoke from used oak staves.
he royal families of Scotland’s past
have been immortalized in history
books and fables, but one Scottish
king lives on: The Macallan. Founded
in 1824, the Speyside distillery now widely
sets the standard for Scotch whisky served
around the world. Part of the current brown
spirits boom, the old favorite has charmed a
host of new fans with its consistent high quality. Meanwhile, loyal aficionados continue to
covet classic bottles, along with more recent
and limited edition releases.
The Macallan also owes the craft food and
drink movement for its recent growth in popularity. “We’re coming out of a long period
driven by artificially flavored spirits and heavily processed foods,” explains Craig Bridger,
brand ambassador for The Macallan. “People
are increasingly demanding authenticity and
craft in the things they eat and drink. A carefully made spirit like The Macallan single
malt scotch—distilled batch by batch in pot
stills, as it has been since 1824—really fulfills
that desire, I think.”
Authenticity and craft are in abundant supply at The Macallan distillery, which houses
the smallest spirit stills in the scotch-producing region of Speyside. Out of those stills’
yield, only 16 percent makes it into the
meticulously chosen oak casks, which vary
in wood to lend distinct flavors and aromas
to each bottle.
“The amount of care and research The
Macallan puts into every bottle is incredible,” says Nic Wallace, head bartender at the
River Bar at Sea Island. The resort has one
of the largest collections of The Macallan
Scotch whisky in the Southeastern United
States. “The Macallan employees have such
a deep, profound love for what they do there
and really put everything they have into
their whiskey, and we’re proud to sell it.”
Each pour of The Macallan contains complex flavors from distilling practices that
have been perfected over the past couple of
centuries, causing bartenders like Wallace to
take great care in serving it. At the River Bar,
guests can partake in a Scottish tradition with
The Macallan neat or on the rocks (for which
hand-carved blocks of ice are used), or play
with convention in a cocktail.
12 SEA ISL AND LIFE | SPRING/SUMMER 2015
SI5_Libations-e_v2-e_v3_v5-e.indd 12
3/19/15 4:16 PM
TOP LEFT PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MACALLAN; TOP RIGHT AND BOTTOM PHOTOS BY CHRIS MONCUS PHOTOGRAPHY
BY LINDA DOMINGO
PHOTO BY CHRIS MONCUS PHOTOGRAPHY
THE MACALLAN HAS RAISED THE BAR FOR SCOTCH WHISKY SINCE 1824.