Harvey: “When their enemies were at the gates, the Romans would suspend democracy and appoint one man to protect the city. It wasn’t considered an honour; it was considered a public service.”

Rachel: “Harvey, the last man who they appointed to protect the Republic was named Caesar, and he never gave up his power.”

Harvey: “Well, I guess you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” 

– The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan)

Two years ago, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (TDK) was selected for preservation in the US Library of Congress as a culturally significant film. Years after its release, TDK is still assessed as one of the greatest modern superhero films ever made, particularly for its rejection of a campy comic-book style in favour of heightened realism that helps you imagine there being a real Batman in a modern-day American city.

Its brilliant scriptwriting highlights the point about realism. Spend some time considering District Attorney Harvey Dent’s clever remark, and you’ll come to find that it rings true in many real-world situations, in an almost inevitable way.

Let’s say you’re a Scottish farmer in the 1800s who decides to start a whisky distillery using excess barley. With years of dedication to your craft, you build a reputation for making great whisky amongst your surrounding communities. You die of old age. The humble craft distillery business was passed down generation to generation as a family business (sometimes sold to another family distiller), until the owners encounter a secular downturn. Now, they are presented with two options:–

(A) Die a “hero” – Shut down the distillery and end its 100-year-old legacy. There’s a good chance their remaining barrels would be passed down as a cherished stock from a legendary ghost distillery.

(B) Become “the villain” – Sell the distillery to a profit-driven enterprise that could save it.

There’s no two ways about it. Once the family-owned distillery is sold to an enterprise, the distillers will have to accept a shift of priorities. These managers will likely tailor the brand and product to appeal to a more mainstream consumer, which in turn maximises profit. This could mean diluting the alcohol by volume (so the spirit becomes more approachable to a general consumer). This could mean adopting an elaborate packaging even if it doesn’t improve the taste of the whisky. This could mean marketing campaigns blatantly designed to pique the interest of a mainstream consumer – “A whisky that tastes like chocolate? I guess I should spend the rest of my limited liquor budget on this one.”

To an early fan, The Macallan of today has become a “sell-out”, even as it continues to produce fairly decent whisky. But that’s just the business reality of becoming a mainstream luxury brand. Competition between producers is intense, and a new drinker only has a limited whisky budget. How do you cut through the noise and catch the consumer’s attention? Say something outrageous.

And so, Macallan has done it again with its Harmony Collection series. After last year’s Rich Cacao which raised more than a few eyebrows, they doubled down still, calling this year’s release Intense Arabica. Somewhere in the sprawling Macallan distillery complex I imagine their whisky blenders throwing up their hands in frustration as the coffee-based theme of the year was revealed. “Could we at least caveat that this was just ‘Inspired by’ Intense Arabica, and not in fact equivalent to Intense Arabica?”

But even if geeks rarely say nice things about The Macallan, their campaigns are a masterclass in rousing interest within the general public – always a good thing for the industry in the long run. This month, The Macallan Boutique at Singapore’s Raffles Hotel ran a series of experiential tasting session for the Intense Arabica titled “It’s Coffee Time at The Macallan”. Online tickets sold out within half a day, and when I visited, the boutique was packed by the whisky-curious.

For about S$25 (US$19) dollars, we purchased a dram of Intense Arabica. There were also baristas making complimentary cups of espresso coffee made from your choice from a range of African and South American coffee beans.

Finally, we’re served everything on a tray with some popcorn. Because the Intense Arabica expression is inspired by Ethiopian Arabica coffee, the tasting experience recreates an Ethiopian coffee ceremony where coffee is traditionally served with popcorn.

Supposedly, pairing the espresso with the dram would help you find notes of coffee more easily in the whisky. Of course, I didn’t believe that. The hot coffee would almost certainly overwhelm your senses before you could get to nosing the whisky. I avoided the espresso and went straight for the whisky.

But I did learn something new that day. I initially doubted the Ethiopian popcorn story – it just seemed too convenient to serve a dry non-perishable snack in this setting. However, a casual Google search confirms that there is indeed such a practice.

Macallan Inspired by Intense Arabica – Review

Colour: Clarified butter.

Nose: Very honeyed and round and approachable with mild depth.

Initial impressions are a pleasant aroma of honey, clarified butter and a lot of vanilla. Very friendly on the nose with minimal heat and spice.

There is a bit of complexity and depth to the nose. As the aromas open we get more sweetness wrapped up with deeper notes from European oak. Vanilla orchid, scattering of very sweet milk chocolate buttons, cinnamon sticks, fruit cake, dried medjool dates and raisins. No Intense Arabica, but there’s indeed a bit of coffee flavoured milk at some point.

Overall, a lightly layered and approachable nose. There’s a slight bit more complexity to this than the core range Macallan 12 Year Old Sherry Oak for sure. (I’m sure of this because I had to buy 1 core range product before I’m allowed to purchase the Intense Arabica expression for my collection.)

Palate: Sweet, honeyed, medium bodied and fairly straight forward. There’s a light oiliness to the texture, around that of most 12 year old Macallan expressions.

More honey and rounded flavours. Initial sip sees generous honey and vanilla shining through, before turning to brown butter, dried figs and caramel sauce. Once again, incredibly approachable and rounded without any heat or spices.

Finish: medium in length, with some growing depths of oakiness. Baked ginger bread and very gentle wood tannins and leather are felt on the back of the throat, before turning to a lingering taste of brown sugar and Ma Lai Go / 馬拉糕 (Cantonese steamed brown sugar cake).

My thoughts

Are you open-minded about the occasional Starbucks Frappuccino? Or are you a coffee connoisseur – offended by those sweet, creamy, milked-up caloric monstrosities?

This expression can be compared to a cup of Starbucks coffee. It’s a decently tasty sipping dram that is highly approachable and easy flavours for a non-whisky drinker to appreciate. It isn’t intended to impress a Scotch devotee any more than a Starbucks Frappuccino is intended to impress a coffee connoisseur.

I do get some sweet milk coffee on the nose. But if you’re still looking back and forth the Palate or Finish for distinctive notes of “coffee”, “espresso” or “cappuccino,” I’ll save you the trouble: I personally didn’t get any.

Before we show up to the distillery with pitchforks and flaming torches, let’s consider who this whisky is bottled for. This isn’t meant for a niche audience of Scotch devotees. This is designed to appeal to the mass market. I know it’s hard for a whisky geek like you to imagine, but there’re still many folks out there on the fence about getting into whiskies. What Macallan does brilliantly with its Harmony Collection is to offer these folks a compelling reason to get interested in whisky, by association with universally-beloved foods like coffee and chocolate. New whisky drinkers do enjoy this association, many of whom arguably would not have tried a whisky had it not been for marketing campaigns like Macallan's. And if a whisky devotee genuinely feels catfished by the promise of an “Intense” coffee experience, I imagine that Macallan’s response is: “I can’t believe you fell for that.”

@CharsiuCharlie