Macallan 1968-2002 - 34 Year Old - Jim McEwans Celtic Heartlands

The grandest of Speyside’s blue chip distilleries, Macallan was founded in 1824 and carved a reputation for luxury single malt whisky in the 1980s with string of 18-year-old and 25-year-old sherry-matured vintage single malts distilled in the 1960s and 1970s, building on the renown of earlier highly-regarded licensed bottlings by Gordon & MacPhail and Campbell, Hope and King.

In the early 2000s, as the supply and quality of even the best sherry casks declined dramatically, Macallan introduced their Fine Oak series, an initially controversial range of bottlings that included bourbon-matured spirit in the cask recipe. While the Fine Oak series took some time to find its audience, Macallan’s status as the top Speyside distillery - particularly at auction - was already well-established and today a legion of eager Macallan fans ensure that each new luxury bottling from the distillery sells out immediately on release.

Independent whisky bottler Murray McDavid was founded by La Réserve wine merchants Simon Coughlin and Mark Reynier with Gordon Wright from Springbank in 1994. Murray McDavid quickly established themselves in the new wave of indie bottlers, with a string of great whiskies bottled without colouring or chill filtration at a minimum strength of 46%.

After a failed bid for Ardbeg in 1997, Murray McDavid bought Bruichladdich distillery in 2000 and swiftly transformed the rundown distillery’s fortunes, employing Jim McEwan as manager and embracing the wine finishing trend with gusto. In 2012 Murray McDavid & Bruichladdich were bought by Rémy Cointreau, who sold Murray McDavid to Aceo Ltd, another whisky broker and bottling company, the following year.