Visiting The Macallan distillery in 2024

Even if you only have a vague interest in Scotch whisky, you’re probably aware that The Macallan embarked on a massive and – literally – groundbreaking construction of a new distillery in recent times.  Established on the Macallan Estate, just a short distance from the existing/old distillery, the new production facility is exceptional and unique in its design, its layout, its appearance, and its functionality.  The new distillery is also unique in its approach to whisky tourism and how it goes about welcoming visitors.  Visiting The Macallan as a whisky enthusiast can be a tricky venture at the present, and it’s not a simple exercise.  If you’re wanting to visit the new Macallan distillery and to experience one of their tours, here are a few thoughts, tips, and comments following our visit in April 2024… 

The new distillery

First of all, let’s establish a few facts and figures to set the scene:  The new distillery was announced in 2012 and construction ran for three years from 2014 until the first spirit flowed off the stills in December 2017.  Designed by renowned architects Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners, the overall cost of the project came in at a reported £140M, which is a lot of no-age-statement bottles you need to sell to pay for the build!  The distillery’s form and layout is partially cut into the hill, and then features a green roof with uniquely shaped mounds that give the impression of the distillery being wholly underground. As you can see on the images below, each mound conceals under it the production hubs (more on these in a moment), and the visitor centre and bar area.  Not surprisingly, the distillery has won a number of industry awards across the disciplines of architecture, design, construction, innovation, and sustainability.  It is entirely unlike any other distillery in Scotland.

(Click each image to enlarge)

The setup

The new distillery was built while the incumbent production site was still operating, and it was simply a matter of “flicking the switch” once it came time to move production to the new facility.  While the entire production area is really just one giant room, it effectively has the appearance of housing three separate, individual distilleries within it.  There’s a single, giant mashtun at one end (with provision for a second mashtun which will be added shortly down the track) and this then provides the wort to each of the three production hubs.  Each of these three hubs is self-contained with its own set of tanks, washbacks, stills, and condensers.  Again, click on each image below to enlarge…

Each of the three hubs has seven washbacks and four sets of stills, with a set comprising one wash still and two spirit stills.  If you’ve done the maths correctly, that’s a total of 12 stills per hub, and thus the distillery actually has 21 washbacks, 12 wash stills, and 24 spirit stills in total.  The mashtun alone is an incredible achievement in mashing, with a capacity of 17 tonnes and taking just three hours to complete a mash!  Fermentation is a brisk 48 hours in the 100,000L capacity stainless steel washbacks.  The distillery’s water needs are sourced from four boreholes that are sunk 70m into the ground and are effectively filtered through granite meaning – yep, you guessed it – soft water.     

Macallan has long built its reputation and marketing collateral on its unusually small stills, and they’re delightfully visible and tangible in the new distillery.  (The old distillery didn’t really give you a great sense of things as you were whisked through the stillhouse at a level below the operations floor).  With demand for the brand at such a high – it’s the third biggest distillery in Scotland these days – it must have been tempting to chase efficiency and simply install bigger stills.  However, as we all know, such a move would completely change the character of the spirit, and the distillery is to be commended for sticking with style and tradition.

The foyer and reception area as you enter the distillery

Visiting The Macallan

So those are the cold facts about the distillery.  What about actually visiting The Macallan?  Can you simply stroll up to the door and ask to see around?  Sadly no.  In fact, far from it.  At the risk of being critical, their website makes it unusually confusing to understand the tours available, and the very limited availability makes it surprisingly difficult to book yourself in.  At the time of writing, the distillery is only open for tours four days of the week (Thursday to Sunday).  The number of physical tours actually offered throughout the day is relatively small, and the groups are kept intentionally small.  What this means is that, while each tour is thus intimate and you’re not lost in a crowd, there actually aren’t many spots available, and demand far outweighs supply.  Adding to the complexity is the fact that the distillery only opens up their tours for bookings one or two months at a time, and only one to three months in advance, and they sell out within a matter of days – even hours – after each new block is released.  Most international visitors planning a whisky pilgrimage to Scotland plan their itineraries and book their flights & accommodation well beyond three months of their travel dates, and so it’s an extremely frustrating experience trying to co-ordinate visits to other distilleries or to plan your movements around Speyside while you’re holding out for a golden ticket to The Macallan.

Before proceeding any further, let’s establish some terms of engagement:  Whisky & Wisdom is a resource for whisky enthusiasts, and we’ll assume that most people reading this piece are devoted whisky fans who simply want to visit the distillery, see around, understand the processes on site, understand how the distillery’s operations differ from its neighbours, and maybe have a dram or two at the end of the tour.  If the above describes yourself, then I’m not convinced Macallan is entirely catering to you.  Yes, you can do those things, but it’s not as clear cut or as finely tuned as that.  What follows are my personal thoughts and observations, and I readily acknowledge that I’m probably not the typical customer that Macallan’s visitor centre looks to accommodate.  The Macallan is a luxury brand; it aims for a particular market, and there’s no denying that a visit to their distillery is a luxury experience.  It is formatted and priced accordingly.  The brand knows which side its bread is buttered on, and the likes of the whisky fans scrambling all over Speyside to squeeze in as many distillery visits as they can is evidently not their target demographic.   So, if any of the following words below appear critical or negative in their tone, appreciate that I’m writing them from the viewpoint of the avid whisky enthusiast.  And one who’s visited and toured over 100 of Scotland’s distilleries, which brings with it some perspective…

 

What to expect

The tours aren’t called tours, they’re called experiences, and Macallan’s website makes it a little confusing to ascertain exactly what’s on offer with each experience and how one differs from the other.  You won’t find simple language such as “take a tour of the production floor and finish with a dram”, which is really what most of us are looking for.  Rather, the following extract comes from the blurb for their The Heart of the Spirit experience: “Enjoy a cocktail and explore our universe through an immersive digital experience featuring animation, sound design and specialist projection techniques. Illustrations by Spanish artist and illustrator Javi Aznarez have been animated to tell this tale. Whispers from our past, present and future are narrated in the form of poetry by award-winning Scottish author and poet Jenni Fagan.”   Not exactly “come on down and check the place out”, right?  As recently as March this year, it was not clear which tours actually took you out into the production area, although the website’s text was updated in May and such specifics are now thankfully a little clearer.

After a bit of navigating and some to-and-fro between the pages, you’ll come to understand which experience is The Macallan’s basic tour.  It costs £50, currently lasts for 75 minutes, and includes some drams at the end of the tour.  The tours don’t include a visit to the warehouses per se, however, there is an underground warehouse of sorts within the building which some of the experiences will take you in to.  Here you’ll see some casks curiously suspended out from the concrete wall.  However, you’re in a glass viewing box that is sealed within the space (a bit like looking at the fish at an aquarium), and that magical experience of breathing in the angels’ share is not something you’ll encounter here.  It’s a far cry from walking into a dunnage warehouse (or even a racked warehouse) but I guess it ticks the box of showing visitors what casks of whisky look like. 

The format and structure of the tours seem to be evolving, and perhaps they’re still tweaking things as they respond to customer feedback.  For the base tour that W&W undertook in April 2024, we paid £50 for a two hour experience.  However, the first 45 minutes of that tour was simply walking through the (very impressive) onsite library of old/previous bottlings & releases, and being told about the special bottlings from the past that all cost a fortune.  As a former Macallan brand ambassador of sorts, there were aspects of this I found interesting from a historical perspective, but if you’ve turned up just to see the distillery and you’re also keen to get down the road to Cardhu or across the River Spey to Aberlour before the end of the day, it seemed a little pointless wasting precious (and long) minutes being told all about an un-acquirable bottling that was released four years ago and fetched £2.3M at auction. 

After 45 minutes walking through the archive bottling library, we made our way into the production area. It goes without saying, but the production area is not just impressive from a visual perspective, but also in its elegance, form, and efficiency.  It’s at this stage that our guide gave a few cursory words about production (e.g. the processes of mashing, brewing, and distilling), and there are a few props, toys, and displays to assist you in your understanding along the way.  Visually, it’s fantastic, but my personal reflection was that the tour format and our guide’s approach didn’t really satisfactorily convey the processes and how whisky is made.  You walked past the stills, rather than had an encounter with them.  If you’re new to the intricacies of whisky production, I’m not sure this tour gave you the most informative or helpful rundown.

On the production floor

Leaving the production area, we adjourned to a separate area downstairs to watch the video about Macallan’s use of casks and their maturation regimen. If you’ve ever wondered about the differences between American oak and European oak, this was actually a pretty informative part of the tour.  We then stepped into the underground “warehouse”, as outlined earlier above.

From viewing the casks on the wall, our group of four adjourned to the bar upstairs and were led through a tasting that featured three whiskies (the 12yo from the Colour Collection, the 15yo Double Cask, and the 18yo Sherry Cask) before then re-locating downstairs to the boutique where we were treated to a dram of The Macallan “A Night on Earth (The Journey)” release.   So, £50 pounds for a tour of a unique distillery that included a whisky cocktail on arrival (which was delicious) plus four drams – two of which were from quite expensive bottlings – and you’d have to say the experience was actually tremendous value for money.   Sure, the whole experience was a bit strained and twee in places, and the 45 minutes devoted to the archived bottlings at the start was all a bit self-indulgent at times…although it’s admittedly also the avenue through which the guides give you the rundown of the distillery’s history.   Did I enjoy my visit on the day?  Ultimately, yes.  Would I recommend visiting The Macallan?  Hmmmm…..it depends on what you’re looking for and your affinity for the brand.  If you love Macallan’s whiskies and want to see how and where it’s made, then you should absolutely endeavour to book in for a visit.  If you want to see the latest in distillery construction and technology then, yes, get yourself inside the building.  If your time in Speyside is limited and you can only squeeze a few distillery visits into your itinerary, then – depending on your favourite brands – there’s perhaps some other distilleries that might be higher on your list.

 

Choosing your experience

As we go to print, there are actually nine different experiences available when visiting The Macallan, although only three of these are actually distillery tours in the context that most readers would be looking for.  The so-called Mastery Experience is the big one:  It costs £250, lasts for five hours, and includes a meal at the brasserie with matching wines.  Is this what the average whisky enthusiast is looking for in a distillery visit?  No, but as we’ve established previously – that’s not necessarily Macallan’s raison d’etre or target audience here.

The other six experiences are all tasting/dining/bar/shopping experiences.  To give credit where its due, the new distillery incorporates a well-furnished brasserie downstairs and an incredible bar upstairs, complete with views across the Spey and to Ben Rinnes beyond.  It’s an amazing space, superbly arranged and decked out.  If you’re a big fan of The Macallan’s whiskies, you can book in to simply sit at the bar, or you can sign up for a tutored tasting experience, albeit with a price tag – the most expensive option comes in at £175.  (The cheapest is £35 and includes three drams). But, again, bear in mind that you actually need to book in for these in advance, and the slots disappear quickly.    

Something to keep in mind…

Lest the above sound too critical or dismissive, there’s another aspect to this caper which many whisky enthusiasts conveniently overlook:  Distilleries do not exist as tourist attractions.  They are factories for making alcohol, and they exist so that we can enjoy a delicious dram in 8, 12, 18 years’ time (or whenever).  It is admirable and commendable that so many distilleries have opened their doors and managed to make their production areas accessible for us whilst somehow giving a nod to public safety and not getting in the way of those actually making whisky.  We are quick to criticise a distillery when our visit underwhelms, or to uphold other distilleries as the place to go to.  Let us bear in mind that these places aren’t theme parks, and let’s be grateful that we can actually set foot in the places producing that which brings us joy.

That said, it’s abundantly evident that the new distillery was planned and built with visitors in mind – it clearly wasn’t an afterthought.  Owning company Edrington is a large beast these days, and corporate visitors / corporate entertaining is clearly very much part of the equation at the distillery.    

 

The summary

If you’ve seen around other Scotch whisky distilleries – particularly the old ones that have grown and been tacked-on to over the years (we’re looking at you, Strathisla and Longmorn) – then visiting the Macallan distillery will definitely give you a new and interesting perspective on the modern engineering of a state-of-the-art distillery.  If you’re more of a whisky anorak, then you’ll probably find the technical and informative aspects of your visit a little underwhelming. Alternatively, if you’re new to this whisky caper and have never set foot in a distillery previously, then you’ll probably walk away having had the time of your life.   But the executive summary is this:  Plan early, book early, and cross your fingers for a slot.

Cheers,
AD

PS…have you visited the Macallan distillery yourself recently and have some thoughts on your experience?  Share them in the Comments section below.

PPS…you might enjoy these previous articles we’ve written about The Macallan:

The Macallan – A Night On Earth

Macallan Harmony Collection – Intense Arabica

The Macallan M Copper 

The highs and lows of Macallan