Anyone try Macallan cask strength

[Swanny]

I recently opened my Macallan cask strength (10yr), which I had bought at Brazil Duty Free (really because they had priced it as a normal 10yr old :roll: ). I bought it just before WM had put it as the best Cuban/Whisky combination. I tried it with R&J (my favorite cigar) and found it had so much to offer I forgot about the cigar.
Maybe it's because I live away from home now (edinburgh to Brazil), but I really thought this reminded me of my visit to Macallan, and of Speyside in general. I used slighty childed water (it's bloody hot here now!) and slowly explored the whisky. I got the some great results and some wonderoussmells and tastes.
I would love to know your own :idea: .

By the way whilst R&J/ Coal Ila are still my favorite combo. If you like cigars for the pleasure you must try an Angleica (Bahia, Brazil).

[wpt]

yup.
its bold and bracing.
highly recommended treat

[Tom]

Hello Swanny,
I will try that, like you i like a cigar/dram combo at the right time.
Macallan 10 Cask strength works superb with a cigar, IMO much better then then the dalmore cigar malt and chieftains cigar malt.
Macallan 10 Cask Strength has a pungent strong nose with masses of strong sherry and equally strong oak in balance with the sherry, a malty sweetness is on the background too. some faints of fruit there too but not so bigg. The flavor is alcoholic, very very strong, with balanced oak and sherry from start to finish, with a very sweet malt flavor all the way.its like you got waves of sherry, then oak, then malt and then it starts all over again. In the finish there are no significant changes although it tends to dry out a bit probably due to the oak, malt sweetness lasts forever.
I'll be tasting this one again in the weekend to make a definitive tasting note, the bottle is now half empty so now i will have a good look of the malt overall.
glad to see another fan of both malt and cigars, im quite new to this and am always willing to learn new combinations. so if you have more, shoot ahead.

[Lawrence]

The Macallan Cask Strength is fast becoming one of my 'standard' bottlings, I find it has a lot to offer and I have drams of it several times a week. I'm not a cigar smoker so I cannot offer any thoughts in that direction although I do love the smell of tobacco before it has been introduced to a match.

[Admiral]

I often wonder and contemplate what it is that makes a cask-strength release behave so differently to its regular 40% or 43% siblings?

Afterall, if you took your cask-strength dram and simply added water to get it down to 40 or 43%, you should - in theory - have the same whisky. And yet, there's always something different going on.

An obvious explanation is that you are using your local tap water or bottled water, rather than the reducing water they use at the bottling plant, but there's got to be more to it than that.

Do the distilleries go to great lengths to vat their cask-strength releases from a completely different set of casks to what they vat their regular release out of?

Something to ponder.....

Cheers,
Admiral

[hpulley]

Admiral, most cask strength whiskies I find are very weak with just a little water compared to full strength. I honestly believe they'd be wraiths at 40% though perhaps some day I'll have to sacrifice a dram to find out for sure!!! My tap water is no use, softened by Windsor Salt... but bottled water seems no better. I like my cask strengths at cask strength. I don't know why they are different, but they are.

Harry

[Deactivated Member]

Well, of course the barrels chosen for a cask strength bottling are different from those used in a "standard" bottling. I'd be very surprised if diluting your CS to 40/43/46% yielded the same whisky as the OB, regardless of the water used. It would be very interesting to have all the cask information available for any given OB--age, type of cask, %alcohol, proportion of each in the vatting. There's your blender's art.

[Admiral]

Mr Heid,

Who's to say they don't vat 4000 litres together from a selection of casks, keep 1000 litres to be bottled at the resulting cask strength, and then take the remaining 3000 litres to be watered down and bottled at 40%?

The cask strength and the regular bottlings would therefore contain precisely the same whisky, from the same vatting. All things being equal, apart from the water you use to reduce your cask strength at home, the bottlings should taste the same.

Cheers,
Admiral

[Lawrence]

I agree with Admiral, it does not go without saying that they are different casks used for the 'standard' bottling' and the cask strength. A good example is Laphroaig 10 and the CS 10 Year Old.

[Tom]

plus there's the filtering that takes out parts of the flavor. I suspect this is what reduces the biggest part of flavor.

[Lawrence]

Yes, chill filtering has certainly wounded many of our favourite drams, Laphroaig, Talisker, etc, etc.

Somebody has a lot to answer for.

[hpulley]

Is Talisker chill filtered? I ask because I've always had it at 45.9% or higher ABV and I suspected it was not chillfiltered. I could be wrong though. I'll be trying the 20yo 1982 on Burns' Night

Its getting to the point where I'm only going to buy cask strength offerings. I still enjoy low strengths but I like CS even more and eventually I may not enjoy the low ABVs.

Harry

[Lawrence]

I'm not a cigar smoker either but I would imagine it has the weight to stand up to cigars.

[Tom]

Indeed, my favorites to pair a good cigar are the Mac 10 CS, then Aberlour A' bunadh and glenfarclas 105. all three heavely sherryd CS monsters.

[Admiral]

Taste a line up of 4 or 5 different bottles of non-chillfiltered whiskies, and you'll quickly discover that they all share a certain juicyness and oiliness.

You then instantly notice the change when you subsequently taste a chill-filtered whisky.

Cheers,
Admiral

[MGillespie]

Just tasted a Cask Strength side by side with a MacAllan 14YO Whisky Galore (Duncan Taylor) expression. I'm not a cigar smoker, but I can't imagine that this one wouldn't be able to stand up to any cigar. It's intense, and amazing with a flavor that explodes on the lips -- even before it gets to the tongue.

Mark

[Swanny]

Sorry gents Been away for the weekend and missed out on a good conversation.
The old Mac tour took you into the nosing room where you meet the 'big' nose himself. I really started to understand more about what goes into making a brand malt. You have to get all these different casks to taste the same as your last batch. With the independents and MWS offering alternatives I guess the cask strength is an oportunity to show a new expression of a whisky.
By the way has anyone tried the 7yo Mac? My sister lives in Italy so we usually have one at home.

As for the Cigars. Does anyone like Bourbon with their cigar? I had a Brazilian with a Maker's Mark at the weekend. Fabulous. The sweetness turning to dry and spicy finish was great. :roll:

[Admiral]

Hmm....the beauty of being in an international forum....

Down here, "having a Brazilian" means something quite different!!

Cheers,
Admiral

[Lawrence]

Yes, here too!

[Crispy Critter]

As a non-smoker, I can't comment on the cigar-worthiness of whiskies, but I had a bottle of the Macallan NAS cask strength bottling a while back (the 10YO CS never made it to the USA). I found that I liked Aberlour A'Bunadh better.

That being said, the Mac was still good, and it got better after the bottle had a chance to breathe a bit.

[Mr Fjeld]

Thought I'd use the oportunity of this Macallan thread to ask if any of you have tried this one: "Macallan Eilan Gillan Single Cask 1990"
There are a couple of bottles left around here but I suspect not many! Do you recomend I get it or should I go for the cheaper "OB 12 Year Fine Oak" ?

[Deactivated Member]

Mr Fjeld,

I would go for the Macallan single cask, since there are not many left. 1990 was a very good year for the Macallan, I noticed that distillates from The Macallan from that era are quite good.

Cheers,

Erik

[Mr Fjeld]

Mr Fjeld,

I would go for the Macallan single cask, since there are not many left. 1990 was a very good year for the Macallan, I noticed that distillates from The Macallan from that era are quite good.

Cheers,

Erik

Thanks for the advice Erik - I'll go get it as soon as my overstretched whisky purchasing budget returns to normal

Cheers!
Christian

[Tyson]

The Mac CS is good, but the Aberlour A'bundah is definitely better - it's less "caramel-y" tasting and smoother, less "dirty" tasting than the Macallan CS. I've noticed that the old style 12 year old Mac's had this same "caramel and dirty" flavor, where the new style Macs (with the Triangle age label on the neck) is back to clean and more fruity flavored. Hopefully this trend will reach the Mac CS bottlings as well. If that happens the the Mac CS will no doube be a great whisky!

[islayjunkie]

The Mac CS is good, but the Aberlour A'bundah is definitely better - it's less "caramel-y" tasting and smoother, less "dirty" tasting than the Macallan CS.

Are we talking about the 10yo CS or none dated bottle? I must try Aberlour A'bundah now that it is available. These 2 sound like a good excuse for another whisky tasting

[Deactivated Member]

I think I may have mentioned this before, but has anyone tried the Glenmorangie Natural? My recollection of it (from some time ago) is that it would sit quite nicely in a HTH with the Mac CS and the a'bunadh.

[Tyson]

islayjunkie,
Mine is a NAS. The 10 year old CS Mac seems to not be distributed where I am at (Denver, Colorado).

[islayjunkie]

islayjunkie,
Mine is a NAS. The 10 year old CS Mac seems to not be distributed where I am at (Denver, Colorado).

I should have guessed. I will certainly add a couple bottles of A'bundah to my reserves without having tasted one

Thank you. I'll post notes soon.

[Lawrence]

I've found that the Macallan CS collapses with water but is not quite as good as the Aberlour a'bunadh or the Glenfarclas 105 which I am really beginning to like. I've actually being using the Macallan for maturing a fruit cake. We'll find out how it tastes in December.

[islayjunkie]

I've found that the Macallan CS collapses with water but is not quite as good as the Aberlour a'bunadh or the Glenfarclas 105 which I am really beginning to like. I've actually being using the Macallan for maturing a fruit cake. We'll find out how it tastes in December.

I'll add 2 bottles of Glenfarclas 105 to the list... damn! how am I going to pay my rent next month

[andrewfenton]

Just to add that if you like the 105 or the A'bunadh, maybe have a try of the Glengoyne 12 cask strength. It's about the same price, and fairly similar - not quite as intense, but slightly sweeter, and it takes its water beautifully. You can easily sit with this for an hour, adding a dribble of water every so often, revealing a new layer. To my mind, that makes it an ideal movie dram

Anyone else can recommend similar sherry monsters from other distilleries?

[Lawrence]

Yikes! Rent, food or whisky! The horror!

I just read about the Glengoyne 12 in WM, we've not seen it here yet however Glengoyne is one of my favourites so I will snap up a bottle as soon as I can.

[SasquatchMan]

Well, I had some cask strength Mac at a tasting, last night, and I can't imagine what you folks like about that stuff. Smelled like a boot, tasted like a boot. Watered down or not, it was unidimensional, and basically unpleasant. If I had tasted it blind, I would have suggested that it was homebrew or something. In my opinion, this is a whiskey that has been over-matured, and the result is that any interesting flavours have been buried in caramel and oak. Blech.

[islayjunkie]

Smelled like a boot, tasted like a boot.

You just described what I liked most about this whisky

I agree there is not much complexity here but if you like Islay I'm sure you may appreciate the leather/dirty/earthy taste this whisky leaves in your mouth. The heavy sherry and caramel apple is a nice combination too... if you like that sort of thing.

[SasquatchMan]

Well, ordinarily, I do enjoy Islays, - ordinarily I prefer them to others, though a spicy spey can be great too.

Having a leathery mouthfeel and taste is one thing, but having that be really the only note in a very flash whisky was disappointing. Mix some of that in with a bit of salt, or spice, or something, and you'd have a real neat drink. As it stands, IMHO, it's a bottle full of garbage.