Macallan Edition No. 1, C8.V130.T19 2015-001, 48% abv.

Supposedly a bottle count of 120,000 and marketed as Macallan's experiment, or showcase, with varying amounts of European and American oak. However, the list of barrels involved, shown below, is mostly European oak:
1st Fill European Tevasa Butts
1st Fill European Hudosa Butts
1st Fill American Vasyma Puncheons
1st Fill European Miguel Martin Butts
1st Fill European Gonzalez Byass Butts
1st Fill European Tevasa Puncheons
2nd Fill European Sherry Hogsheads
2nd Fill European Sherry Butts

Nose: like a sherry cask matured whisky, heavy honey notes, a good amount of cherry cough syrup.

Palate: wood more towards heavy oak, sour wood, sour notes prevail, clove, tannins? just a lot of spices and oak.

Finish: non-existent, like a small pulse of wood and oak that very quickly disappears.

Wow, what a disappointment when compared to editions 2, 3, and 4. It's like eating at Joel Robuchon at 18 years old and then trying normal American food after. Everything seems unbalanced where the nose is heavy on honey and cherry cough syrup which then leads to a sour and oaky palate and then a mysteriously non-existant finish. To be honest, it's hard not to compare and I think if I never had the more recent editions, I still wouldn't have thought much of it. There's just not much going on, or there is a lot of weird oak spice going on, but not full oak. I can see why edition 1 never made it and is only making the rounds on the coattails of edition 2. Definitely makes me appreciate editions 2 and 3 more though. Not sure what was Macallan's target in this edition though. Funny thing was the bartenders recommended NOT to try it, and charged the same price as Edition 2, warning me Edition 1 is weird. Funny thing is that almost all bars that I've been to in Seoul and Busan that had Edition 1 didn't recommend it, charged similar pricing to Edition 2, 3, and 4, and usually had open bottles with good fill levels. Had this at Bar Listen, Seoul, South Korea.

Grade: D

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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