THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE MACALLAN MASTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY

To tell the Story of The Macallan Master of Photography we have to go back to the days before the Whisky market went crazy, back in those days there were no Whisky Auction Sites, when Macallan released a new bottle it sat on the shelves with no queues out the door, no ballots and certainly The Craigellachie Estate was never brought to a standstill like back in 2018 when Macallan released their Genesis Bottle.

Back in 2009 when Macallan released the first of the Master of Photography’s the Rankin Bottle things were certainly different. The legendary Photographer Rankin was invited and given free reign of The Macallan Estate with the task of taking 1000 individual Polaroid Picture’s, each would be made into a label and boxed with a 30 Year Old Fine Oak so you would have a 30 Year Old Whisky with a unique label, Polaroid and booklet signed by Rankin!

Except for 189 Polaroid’s which were taken in colour, a colour label was made and all were placed in a Red Leather Presentation Box. These unique limited edition bottles were not for the UK Market these were sent far and wide across the Globe.

In 2010 the second Chapter of The Macallan Master of Photography Albert Watson a 20 Year Old Sherry Oak was produced and again there were 1000 limited edition bottles. But this time Albert Watson was tasked with documenting the journey of the wood from the traditional Cooperage in Jerez Northern Spain a journey of 600 miles lasting 12 days, following a young couple on their journey to the home of The Macallan.

But this is not the whole story, yes they produced 1000 bottles 900 of which were for the UK Market and presented in a Black Box containing a 20 Year Old Sherry Oak Macallan bottled at 43% ABV including a set of 10 portfolio prints. The remaining 100 bottles were produced at a higher strength of 46.5% ABV presented within a Blue/Grey Presentation Box.

These 100 bottles were then sent far and wide around the Globe, 10 Bottles were sent to Hong Kong International Airport, 10 Bottles to New York, and 12 to Mexico all of which sold out within a matter of days, and the rest went to who knows where?

To date none of these Blue Box higher strength Macallan’s have shown up at Auction and can be classed as very rare indeed.

There were however a further 36 Bottles produced individually customised containing Macallan Whisky from 1946 the year that Albert Watson met his Wife Elizabeth, so you could in fact say that they produced 1036 Bottles of Master of Photography Albert Watson, these 36 Bottles must be amongst The Holy Grail of Macallan.

SCOTCH GALORE