*notcot in food+drink , 18:10

The Macallan NOTCOT Edition- 09.29.10

maclab0.jpg This morning, we attempted to create our ideal whisky from (amongst others) the samples we collected from 12 year old casks of The Macallan. Bob Dalgarno, The Macallan Whisky Maker, taught us so much about the art of whisky making, and the complicated challenge of smelling, tasting, and seeing how to make the perfect bottles of The Macallan, to that perfect smell/taste/color we’ve come to know and love. As he explained the difficulty of making something so consistent from so many varying casks of whisky, and even deciding which casks are decided to be set aside to age longer and such ~ the most creative aspect to emerge was his challenge to us to smell the differences between an array of samples to attune our palates… only to ask us to create in our minds… our ideal whisky. What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What does it make you think of?

And from that, The Macallan NOTCOT Edition was born… can it ever be recreated? Probably not. But i have one little bottle of it! I apparently like my scotch smooth with a deliciously dark maple flavor amidst the spicy woody spanish sherry oak… (Macallan 18 is my everyday favorite ~ but the upcoming Masters of Photography series, omg, deliciousness)… in my head i imagined a cozy comforting log cabin, and since it was early, on not too much sleep, and after a light breakfast… i was loving the maple aromas, i think i had pancakes on my mind…

Anyhow, it is unbelievably hard trying to decipher the aromas, figuring out which samples to mix, finding the right notes to layer for that drinkable delicious whisky with a nice long finish… but we tried. And bonus points to Evan from Cool Hunting who was definitely the whisky maker with the most potential in our group! His smelled divine! And delicious too! Don’t get me wrong, NOTCOT edition is yummy as well ~ my bottle of that is coming home with me! It was incredibly fun and fascinating to play with the awesome syringes to mix samples in our bottles, measure the percentage of alcohol, taste test, and more ~ while i’m no master whisky maker in the making, i definitely have a new appreciation for exactly how much work is going into even just mixing the right casks to make the bottles that show up on the shelf! But, that’s enough rambling for now ~ you really must see how incredible The Macallan lab/Bob’s office is! And the process we went through making our own Macallan whisky ~ all on the next page!

Isn’t it an amazing space? sample after sample of casks that Bob is testing out… maclab2.jpg

first we got to know a few different colors/flavors/aromas from new make spirit to various fine oak and spanish sherry casks and more… maclab3.jpg

Then he let us at even MORE samples, including those we collected yesterday! maclab4.jpg

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As we made our choices, we used the awesomest syringes to extract 10mL samples to add to our bottles… layering the flavors bit by bit… maclab7.jpg

Once we settled on our bottles ~ they were measured for labeling! maclab8.jpg

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And here it is ~ my special one of a kind ~ The Macallan NOTCOT Edition! maclab11.jpg

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2 Notes

I’m jealous. It looks like you guys had so much fun.

----- Simon 30.09.10 07:51

This is just magnifique!
I am working in a tea company & I will totally put “need tea lab, pronto” in the suggestion box!

Thanks for sharing Jean!

----- natalya 29.09.10 20:41


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