Distillation date of 12 YO Macallans?

[Sherried Malt]

Hi all.

I've gotten on a recent kick of collecting older 12 YO Macallans. Unfortunately, Macallan doesn't indicate a vintage year on the bottle the way they do for the 18s, so I have no way of knowing if something was disilled in the 60's or 70's. Any suggestions as to how I might be able to narrow it down? Are there any codes on the bottles or labels that may hint at the contents' age?

I've tried to focus on 75cl bottles from Europe on the assumption the EU didn't convert over to the 70cl size until 1992. Do we know when Macallan actually used the 75cl bottles? I've asked Macallan but my inquiries have gone unanswered...

Thanks a lot in advance!

[Deactivated Member]

You are correct - the 12s are not dated and never were.
You can estimate eras by the label styles as there are some subtle differences and there are probably bottle codes too, try asking the distillery directly about these.

I have found that even the current 18s which are dated, are not so accurate as they were pre-1986. The latest ones are quite vague saying something like "contains whisky from the year xxx and other vintages".

If you look at the classic labels which were used up to and including 1986, each year is specific and these are highly collectible and increase in value yearly.

MT