AW: [MM-MALTS-L] Old Macallan

[Horst Luening]

Hello Nico!

I am able to add pictures of the old stillhouse. You find them on this page:
http://www.thewhiskystore.de/dist/macallan/still.htm
They are the both very last pictures on this page. I took them in 1994/95.

You are able to see six stills but if I remember right there had been more.
The old and the new stillhouse are connected by a pipeline bridge on which
the Macallan distilley sign is attached.

Kind Regards,
Horst

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: mm-malts-l-bounces at grsnet.net
[mailto:mm-malts-l-bounces at grsnet.net]Im Auftrag von Nico Spiegel
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. Oktober 2009 00:58
An: 'MaltManiacs operated former 'MALT-L' Whisky List'
Betreff: [MM-MALTS-L] Old Macallan


Hello everybody,

It's nice to see that our list has been revitalised after months of
extremely low traffic. So, I decided to give up my usual lurking position
and to contributed to the debate by asking a question. I bought recently the
phantastic photo book "Bottled History - Vestiges of a disappearing era in
Scottish malt whisky distileries" by Ian Macilwain (www.bottledhistory.com).
It is essentially a collection of great photos of disused equipment, old
buildings and forgotten corners of (working and silent) distilleries,
together with statements from interviews with retired distillery workers -
an atmospheric journey into bygone times.

But that's not my main point. At the end of the book, Macilwain gives
explanations on the particular settings where the photos were taken. Among
these locations figures "Old Macallan Distillery, Rothes". Macilwain says:
"Macallan is an immaculately clean, highly automated distillery, with a
deservedly high reputation. Lying behind the main still house is an
unobtrusive building containing the original distillery, which has been
mothballed since 1980. It is now being brought back into service as a result
of increased demand. This old distillery has been largely left alone but
sufficient care has been taken to ensure that the washbacks were kept filled
with water in a state of potential readiness for future use. In view of the
recent announcement regarding its refurbishent this would seem to have been
a very wise move" (page 135, referring to the picture on page 93).

Now, I have heard a number of times that Macallan is increasing its capacity
by building new big warehouses and recommissioning a second stillhouse that
had been out of use for a number of years. I found this always a little bit
odd because it implied that at some time in the past Macallan must have cut
back existing capacity by something like half, making redundant a whole
stillhouse. With Macilwain's explanation things become clearer: There was no
cut-back, but actually a replacement of more or less the whole existing
distillery (at least the still house, including the washbacks) by brand-new
state of the art equipment. However, this is somewhat disturbing because it
would suggest a revolutionary change in production in 1980. What's more, if
you look at the Macallan timeline, for instance in the Malt Whisky Yearbook
2009, there is no such event mentioned. They indicate rather a slow,
continuous increase of capacity ("1974 - The number of stills is increased
to 18, 1975 - An
 other three stills are added, 1980 - The name changes to Macallan"). No
revolution, only slow, old-fashioned organic growth - but then, what about
the sleeping beauty behind the main still house?

Can anybody shed light on this mysterium? What's more, I have a Macallan
Gran Reserva 1980 which is a truly great whisky - where was it distilled, in
Macilwain's time capsule distillery or in a newly installed high tech unit?

Nico Spiegel
Brussels
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