For more than three centuries, The Macallan has called the Easter Elchies House, perched on a ridge above the banks of the River Spey, their spiritual home. Alexander Reid founded the first authorized distillery on the estate, which he named Macallan after an old church that had been destroyed by fire in the fifteenth century, and planted barley in the fields around the rental house in 1820. Reid would ferment and distill his excess grains during the sluggish winter days to create whiskey, which was frequently consumed straight from the still or sold to tourists who were passing through the town.

Currently, 95 of the 370 acres of the Macallan Estate are used for the production of Minstrel barley (an acre yields around 2.5 tons of barley year, which is sufficient to make 1,800 bottles of The Macallan). To produce a rich and fatty whisky, the distillery also enters into agreements with farmers to buy barley that is high in starch and low in nitrogen.

The barley is malted and mashed in one of The Macallan’s two mash tuns, which takes four to eight hours after harvest. Following fermentation with a specially cultivated yeast, the barley is twice distilled using copper-pot stills at The Macallan. The stills’ copper serves as a catalyst, promoting the production of delicious esters while reducing contaminants like sulfur.

Furthermore, production manager Alexander Tweedie claims that the oddly tiny stills, which are among “the smallest stills within the Scotch whisky industry,” yield a whisky with a rich, greasy flavor. After distillation, the Macallan distillers separate the whisky’s heads and tails and reserve around 16% of the spirit to put into maturation casks. This “cut,” one of the highest of any Scottish distillery, makes the whisky richer and fuller.

The most widely consumed whisky worldwide, Scotch is regarded as the best of all of them! Each of Scotland’s five whiskey regions—six if you include the unofficially recognized Islands—produces spirits with special qualities and distinctive flavors. (The type of scotch is determined by the type of grain used.)

Grain whisky employs other grains, such as corn or wheat, while malt whisky is manufactured from malted barley. A single distillery producing a single malt whisky produces an exceptional product known as a single malt, but most whiskies are blended from various distilleries, hence the term blended scotch.

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