Original subtitles

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[Tim] At auction, you never know what's gonna happen.

It just depends on the day.

I mean, it was a very memorable day.

It was all sorts of different emotions, kind

of excitement filled with a bit of nervousness,

slightly worried that, you know, maybe it wouldn't achieve

what I thought it deserved.

You never know if people are gonna raise their paddle.

[Auctioneer] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to Christie's.

I'm delighted that many of you can come here today

to witness what will hopefully be an epic moment

in history for whisky.

We are offering this morning the 1926 Macallan 60-year-old.

This is beautifully illustrated

with Michael Dillon's portrait

of the Easter Elchies House at Macallan.

And we should have plenty of interest here.

A specific bottle that we offered for sale

was from this legendary cask, distilled in 1926,

aged for 60 years, bottled in 1986.

Very limited production.

Only 42 bottles were actually bottled, really exclusive.

And this was hand painted

by the Irish artist Michael Dillon.

[Auctioneer] We'll start the bidding here at 800,000,

850,000 now in the room, 950,000 back in the room, 950,000.

We are holding up 950,000 pounds.

Where should we go from here?

Tim's bidder now at one million, one million pounds

with Tim's bidder at one million.

Last chance of fair warning,

then at one million for the 1926 Macallan.

(gavel thumping) And sold at one million.

On 29th of November, 2018 at Christie's in London,

we sold the most expensive bottle of scotch ever,

breaking the world record, which was a 1926,

the Macallan 60-year-old.

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Macallan distillery, like all single malt distilleries,

is a product of one single distillery

and made in a single location.

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The Macallan continues

to be produced in exactly the same way,

drawing on the same water and raw materials

and processes that has defined our unique spirit for years.

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It's all about perfect product,

whisky that's created to the highest possible standard.

And there's no question about that.

You know, you create it and go, that's not quite right

and it's just thrown away and you start again.

The whisky talks effectively

and tells you no, you know that by the nose, the taste,

and you just go back then to the beginning,

try different cask combinations

until it is the best that it possibly can be.

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Many historians would start

by saying the origins of whisky are obscure.

So it's not truly known.

It was obviously being made elsewhere by unknown people.

It is my belief that the secrets of distilling came

from Ireland to West Coast of Scotland and then to Islay.

They were using medicines based on spirits

from possibly from 1300.

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The first record of alcohol in Scotland dates from 1494.

It's in an Exchequer Rolls,

which is like a royal grocery list.

The first written reference to distilling the very start

to Friar John Cor by order of the king

to make aqua vitae, eight bowls of malt.

And of course it's described as aqua vitae, water of life,

which is directly translated into uisge beatha in Gaelic.

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Distillers like Friar Cor

were capable of producing spirits in reasonable volume.

Eight bowls of malt might be expected

to produce around 200 liters of pure alcohol today.

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The origins of distilling work were,

it was mainly done in abbeys and monasteries,

such as Lindores, where it's believed that Friar John Cor

hailed from Lindores Abbey in Fife.

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Now it's not known what King James IV

and the good friar were doing with this spirit,

it does not tell us whether the distillate

was to be consumed and if possible,

whether it was consumed for pleasure

or used as a medicine or both.

It's been suggested that it might be used as embalming fluid

or as a disinfectant

or in connection with making perfume or gun powder.

Medieval texts make reference to all of these uses.

And then we come to today where when you buy a bottle

of whisky, you buy a hell

of a lot more than liquor in a bottle,

you're buying the blood of one small country.

There are regional differences.

There's differences between one distill another,

even if they're right next door to one another.

And these are the five official regions, Campbeltown,

Islay, Highlands, Lowlands, Speyside.

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Campbeltown, it's got its hills, it's very pretty.

The Campbeltown character is slightly maritime,

slightly grubby, slightly old fashioned,

slightly dirty, dare I say it,

but wonderful, you know, really traditional.

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Islay, you've got mountains up in the north,

but then it flattens down into mainly peat bog.

Islay whisky is traditionally smokey

and slightly salty, slightly maritime.

There are some distilleries there

which have made non-peated Islay whisky.

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Within the Highland region,

some of the rocks up in the northwest Highlands

are among the oldest in the world.

You've got rugged mountainous terrain.

Most highland whiskies now are not peated

or very, very lightly peated, fragrant,

floral and fruity, very maritime.

You've got a great diversity, very, very elegant whisky.

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Lowlands, sort of rolling hills

and great swathes of good hardwood trees.

Lowland whiskies tend to be lighter in style,

although, funnily enough,

in some cases the spirit is quite rich and heavy.

The overall impression is more rural,

fresher, more floral, sometimes.

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The sweetest style of malt whiskies traditionally,

now non-peated whisky, as today, about two thirds

of the operating malt whisky distilleries

come from Speyside.

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So I'm from Speyside, I grew up here.

My husband's from here.

Everywhere you look, there's a distillery.

You know, on these cold, frosty light fog nights,

when you can smell the wash, the fermentation,

you can smell the hot draft going out

because it lingers in the air,

that was my normal and I thought that was normal

for the rest of the world.

Like I also didn't think I had an accent

until I started going other places in the world.

So as soon as you start to travel

and you go somewhere new, you're like,

where are there their distilleries?

And why don't they understand what I'm saying (laughs)?

So yeah, I think it took me quite some time to realize

that what we had in Speyside was special.

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And I guess you take for granted what's right

on your doorstep and you don't really appreciate

or understand that people from all around the world

know your very small rural part of Scotland

because of the whisky.

You know, that's what makes it so famous and so special.

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So we have a new distillery on our estate at Macallan,

and that's where every drop of our liquid is produced.

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Without a doubt, we have got

the world's most beautiful distillery

in our iconic building.

The way that we make whisky and our care, attention,

precision, I don't think that can change.

We've been making whisky legally at Macallan since 1824.

The process with three ingredients

hasn't actually changed that much since then.

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The roof is one of the most complicated timber structures

in the world, comprising 1,800 single beams,

2,500 different elements and 380,000 individual components,

almost none of which are equal or the same.

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We have the spiritual home, Easter Elchies House.

If you've ever seen a bottle of Macallan,

you'll see an image of the house.

The house really is a very special place.

There's a lot of history of Macallan

encapsulated into that house.

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The distillery itself blends beautifully

with the natural environment.

You hardly know what's even there.

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So at Macallan we have three whisky makers, Steve,

Polly, and myself.

And we're also very strongly supported by Russell,

who's currently our sampling assistant.

Whisky to me, is an embodiment of celebration.

It is a moment shared with friends.

It is a moment shared with family.

It can join people together in happiness.

It can join people together in moments of sadness,

but reflection, it's such a leveler on all fields.

If you walk into a room

and you're struggling to speak about something,

everybody has something to say about whisky.

Whisky for me is, has been something

that's been in my family for generations.

My granddad worked at a distillery all his life.

My mom worked at one for 37 years.

So it's just always been around.

So so you're always to a certain extent immersed in it,

but it's not unusual, it's not different.

You know, it is the water you swim in

is just whisky industry. - For each cask of whisky,

I often think about it as people,

so you know, if you ask any person that you meet,

what's their favorite age in their life?

Some people say it's the age they're at right now.

Some people be like, oh, when I was 10

and had no care in the world,

when I was 18 and just having freedom,

everyone's got something slightly different,

and casks of whisky are the same.

So sometimes you'll find a cask of whisky that,

at 10 years old, it thinks it's already 21,

like people, you know, it behaves like that.

It's got the depth, the character, the weight.

You think, how did this even happen at only 10?

Sometimes you get a whisky at 30 years old

and you think, oh, it's much lighter,

it's fresher, it's different than what you'd expect

for something as old as that.

So you never quite know.

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Scotch whisky can only be made of malted barley,

water and yeast and we are restricted

to those three ingredients only.

So we take malted barley

that has been malted for us by a maltster.

We'll grind up into a product that we then called grist,

which is then added to Mash Tun

and it is added to with a lot of hot water.

We'll then move that around in the Mash Tun,

and from there we'll pull off wort,

which is a sugary liquid,

which we then pitch into a wash back.

We will add yeast

and we will let that ferment away until it produces alcohol

to around 9%, so a nice strong beer.

Once that has got to a place in fermentation

where we are happy with it,

we will then pull it through into the stills

and we will do a wash distillation.

So through that we produce low wines,

at approximately 25% alcohol,

which isn't enough for final whisky.

So we'll then take it into a second distillation

in our spirit stills where we will distill it

to about 70% alcohol.

Stills across Scotland vary in size massively.

The tallest in the industry are about 17 feet tall,

whereas at Macallan they're probably closer

to about eight feet,

one of the smallest in Scottish distillation.

And what happens is, in the still, it is basically heated,

a bit like a kettle when you turn a kettle on at home.

So it's heated until the alcohol mixture

in the still starts evaporating

and it comes up the side of the still

and it then evaporates

and it condenses back into liquid.

Some of it'll run back down into the still,

which means only the finest

and purist come up over the top of the still.

It'll come up over into the neck

and then it'll be condensed back into liquid,

which will then run through our safes.

There are many off puts of each of those streams,

but that's distilling in a nutshell.

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New make spirit is what we call whisky

before it has been matured.

So new make spirit is what comes out of the still,

and it's what we put into our exceptional casks.

Every single batch of new make spirit

is nosed and checked by a group of people.

We know exactly what to do to maximize the process.

So the guys are trained, there's years and years

and years of experience.

The new make spirit is pumped up to our filling store

and we have teams on site

who fill the new make spirit into our oak casks.

And then they're the same team who will ensure

that the volume's right

and ensure that the casks are all perfect.

And then they will take them down to warehousing,

which is also one site here.

It is what will become whisky

after three years in maturation.

But what we tend to do is leave it for much longer

so that at the interaction with the wood

and the whisky becomes such

that we get the beautiful rich liquid that we call Macallan.

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As a whisky maker, we have got quite a unique approach

to whisky making at the Macallan

and we nose every single one of our casks

that are then hand selected

to create any one of our whiskies.

So we spend all day nosing whiskies

and that may be to go into a new product,

it may be to create our core range.

It might just be to check how a cask's getting along

because we have a lot of very old stock

and we check on it regularly just to see how it's doing.

Nosing whisky's quite a personal thing.

Everybody's senses are slightly different.

Everybody picks up on different notes.

They mean different things to different people.

You can nose a whisky

and it'll maybe remind you of a memory

or it'll instantly take you to, oh,

that smells like Christmas cake.

So when you're nosing it, you're thinking, okay,

what's the dominant characters,

what's the intensity of them?

Where do they fit within portfolio?

And then you're thinking, well,

if you're building a vatting at that point,

do I have the right balance

of this character within that vatting?

If you do, then you keep it back.

If you don't, then you add it into the vatting if it fits.

So you're continually working out where this goes,

what do I do with it? - That's a big thing.

That's a big part of our job,

and making sure that each one of those whiskies is the same,

so both on nose and on palate to make sure

that the customer gets exactly what they want.

They wanted a Macallan 12-year-old cherry oak,

they're gonna get that every single time they

have one of our bottles.

The option could be that we sample two,

10 casks out of a hundred.

Others choose to do that, but we want to get things perfect.

So the only way we we can do that

is by looking at every single cask

and making the best choice possible.

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So normally Russell will set up the samples first thing

in the morning for a meeting at 10 o'clock

and then we will assess them

and pass or fail at that point.

And if they pass then great if they fail, then we go back

and we rework it and aim to perfect it.

This is just to a wee mechanical syringe that we use

to quite quickly deliver the required amount into a glass.

Just makes us faster and more efficient and more accurate.

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What we're gonna do is set 'em up against the control

and assess them

and then from that point on they go on

to become actual vats that will be bottled.

(whisky sloshing) - [Polly] Oh, that's good.

This just checks the strength,

so the strength of the alcohol,

We're checking this at 40% alcohol and also at 20% alcohol

to make sure it's consistent with previous vatting.

And we do that for both the fine oak and for the sherry,

and then we'll have a conversation

about how we find it once we finish.

So the four of us will do this and then we'll talk about it.

So we make no comment whatsoever at the nosing stage

and it allows everyone the opportunity

to gather their own thoughts on each of the whiskies.

And then we have a little summary at the end.

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I think it's got that extra American edge

that triple casks should have.

Yep. - There's a slight spike

in ginger, but I think it's within spec.

Yeah, I think the triple cask is very good.

Same as Steve's, just got that nice spike about it,

the ginger and also that fizziness

that sometimes comes through as well.

So yeah, really nice.

I'll do palate check on both of them,

but in that case we've got the 18s

that we need for the month, sounds good?

Good job. - Well done, guys.

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I think I'll always love a new box of samples coming

in the sample room, hundreds and hundreds of these samples,

and every time I open a box of these

and set these up alongside the nosing glasses,

put these out on the bench, I'm excited about that

because I'm excited to see what's there.

Is there gonna be something different in here,

something unusual, something really unique?

Do we have a whisky that you look at

and think, do you know what?

I'm gonna put a reservation on that

because that's potentially the next 50-year-old,

60-year-old, 70.

Who knows what kind of age it can get to?

Consistency in our product is color matching

from batch to batch,

it's matching of the nose batch to batch,

matching of the palate batch to batch,

and all of those things together

is what creates our consistency.

Standing at the bench, nosing those whiskies,

it's about remembering where was that smell,

what was that associated with, what else was happening?

Separating and the ability to separate out all of the herbs

and spices that you've smelled before,

the moments, whether it be on holiday,

whether it be traditional pub with a peat burning fire,

all of these things just file away

and they don't seem to go away.

There are some smells that I will see

and some that I can taste and some that I feel.

If I didn't love it, then I'd find it impossible looking

and going, is my excellence excellent enough?

And that little bit of panic.

And that's why it's great that we work in a team

and we work so closely together

because you know, if there were any chance

that your standards may slip one day,

the other guys won't let that happen.

Why would we compare ourselves to other whiskies?

You know, it's good to see what other whisky companies

are doing and taste their whiskies,

but I wouldn't compare Macallan excellence

to excellence with another.

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So intense, the vanilla is lovely

and hints of oak.

Ginger, nutmeg.

Mm, cinnamon and raisins.

Dried fruit, I think everything else has been captured.

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Yeah, go with that. (glass clinking)

(Steven laughing) That's the worst thing

to me, being last though, isn't it?

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This is a picture of my sister and I,

it's taken actually at my granny's farm

and it's a brilliant reminder of the smell and life

in Speyside growing up.

Being around about that age, maybe six or seven

and going over to Keith

and into the health food shop in there

and the smell in the place was so overpowering.

It used to make my mom go crazy

because she thought I was being dramatic

and she'd always be shouting at me, I'd be shouting at her

because I couldn't cope with the smell.

It certainly did not feel like something special.

It upset me very much, it seemed to upset my mother also.

It was a standout moment because of smell,

but I would not say it was a good one (laughs).

But I guess then I knew that I smelled something different.

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For a whisky, you know,

there should always be an appreciation

of the element of time,

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the time that it's taken to get to that stage in the bottle.

A lot of the whisky that we get to use today

is whisky that's sat in the warehouse

and it's just left lying there and sees all of this change

in the world going on outside the walls of the warehouse

and it just keeps on doing its own thing.

[Steve] So you're aware of the amount of time

that it has taken to get to this point.

You want to make the best choice for that cask.

So we need to be very careful

that we're reserving the correct stock for future.

So the decisions that we are making just now

is what goes on to become 25-year-old,

40-year-old, 50-year-old Macallan.

[Polly] The amazing people that have come before us

and have had the foresight to lay down casks

that have allowed us to produce 72-year-old, 60-year-old,

52-year-old, 50-year-old whisky,

and they've had that foresight

and we would like to think that if we even had a tiny amount

of that foresight in what we are laying down

for the future now, it's an incredible feeling

and, you know, responsibility.

[Steve] Many warehouses on site,

some of them are traditional,

so dunnage warehouses where casks are stacked two,

three casks high in a traditional way

that would've been done hundreds of years ago.

We've also got two different sets of racked warehouses,

which are slightly more modern.

We have over 350,000 casks on site.

[Sarah] If you look at really old whisky

and think about what's happened in the world

since that whisky's been laid down,

you become slightly overwhelmed by the whisky.

This cask has still been sitting

in that warehouse, never moved, just doing its thing,

extracting flavor from the woods.

So you're always aware of time.

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The most important ingredient, wow.

For me, I would say the wood.

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Jerez is a city located in the south of Spain.

It belongs to the province of Cadiz,

and Cadiz is the oldest city in Western Europe.

Jerez is mostly known for it's wine.

The cask is used as a container

to transport wine.

That's how our relationship between Jerez

and the Scottish world began,

it has it's roots in the transport industry.

Once the casks arrived in The United Kingdom,

someone had to decide what to do with the casts,

so they sent them to Scotland.

That's when they found out how the wine

from casks from Jerez

gave a special flavor to the Whisky.

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It is hard to believe that a piece of timber,

a tree growing in a forest, manufactured, and cut

and seasoned under specific specifications

can deliver a liquid, a style, a character.

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Generally when we're looking to make a cask,

we're looking at the wood species

and the toasting temperatures.

We're using two types of oak.

We're using Quercus alba, which is an American white oak,

and we're also using Quercus robur, which is a European oak.

And these two different types

of oaks will give us different styles

and characters in the whisky itself.

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So the medullary rays are the feeding vessels of the tree.

So the liquid then finds its way into these medullary rays

and sits in there

and allows then the new make spirit to mature

with the previous liquid and the wood species itself.

Here in Jerez de la Frontera

where the wood is drying approximately 18 months

to two years, wood is the biggest single influence

in the development of flavor to whiskies.

So between the wood species and the toasting temperatures,

we're then able to create that style and character

that Macallan is renowned for.

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And that toasting process is so important.

If you don't have enough heat in the wood,

you don't brake down some of the chemical compounds,

and then if you take it too much,

it has an adverse effect on it.

So I think it's about finding that right balance

that creates not only the color but also the flavor.

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[Huberto] The world of the cooperage dates back to

before Jesus Christ.

Even from Phoenician times, we already had

the history of the cooperage.

Here in Jerez, it starts in the year 1500.

Like everything in life, in order to produce

something with excellent quality,

like the products we produce with The Macallan,

it requires great raw materials and lots of love,

good selection of great raw materials and

the work has to be done to perfection.

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[Stuart] So once the casks are completed here,

they're actually sent to one of our bodegas and partnerships

that we use, a company called Williams and Humbert,

where the casks are then seasoned

with dry Oloroso sherry.

The wood has retained some of that sherry wine,

which then interacts with the new make spirit

at the distillery, allowing that kinda softness

and maturation of the new make spirit.

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Here we're at Williams and Humbert's bodega,

it's the biggest single cell bodega in Europe.

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So we talk about sherry wines,

we are actually using dry Oloroso for seasoning our casks

for between 12 and 18 months.

The casks will be emptied,

they'll then be sent to the Macallan,

where they'll rest in Speyside

for a minimum of 12 years.

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So we've started off with a tree growing in a forest

for over 70 years

to then bend and construct a cask,

not using any nails or glue.

Just that craftsmanship, that skill

of the cooper is just absolutely wonderful.

Sit in a warehouse here in Southern Spain, in Jerez

for up to 18 months,

and then when we send them to the Macallan in Speyside

to sit for another 12 years,

for me sitting in a bar in Jerez de la Frontera,

having a whisky with or a Macallan

with one of our suppliers,

just realizing the amount of attention to detail

and workmanship that's then reflected

in this fantastic whisky is just truly amazing.

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Sometimes we think about what our legacy is

and certainly we do think about our predecessors

and the legacy we want to continue,

successful single malt businesses very much have

to get that sense of time, sense of history

and sense of future time.

And in reality 100 years from now, that's our objective,

to have that whole timeframe in mind

with everything that we do

and with everything that we don't do,

the patience that we bring to bear.

We don't have an endless supply of stock from the 1970s

or the '60s or the 1950s, still maturing in cask

on our estate in Speyside, it is limited.

So there's a natural scarcity

that we have to manage the balance of.

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Scotch whisky is doing terribly well

right across the board all over the world.

Malt whisky is doing extraordinarily well

in pretty well every market.

And as economies prosper, people turn to scotch.

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Smell, emotion and long-term memory

are very tightly connected.

That is a key part of the magic, it's acknowledge

to be the most complex spirit in the world.

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Whisky is entwined through Scotland, through the country,

through the landscape, through the people.

Some people love it, some people don't.

It can polarize opinions

and I think that's part of what makes it special.

Every single part of the whisky

plays into every single bit of Scotland.

So we've got lovely gentle Scotch whiskies

that come from the nice gentle Lowlands,

whereas we've got nice rugged ones

that come from the islands

and we've got these lovely rolling rich ones

that come from Speyside.

And I think each part has its place to play

and each part of Scotland gives us a different whisky

and a different character.

And I think that's absolutely unique to Scotland.

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I like to see it as something that people can react to

in the same way that we do in terms of,

it reminds us of an experience, it reminds us of a memory.

You know, there's so many different ways

that people enjoy it.

We just want to be consistent

in terms of we want to deliver a whisky

that someone can have an experience with.

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[Sarah] To be part of celebrations around the world,

be part of something that people choose

and reach for to celebrate big life moments,

that's phenomenal.

It's taken years to produce it.

It's carefully crafted.

How could it be just a drink?

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