SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY
MATURED IN SHERRY WOOD
DISTILLED IN 1997 AT MACALLAN DISTILLERY
BOTTLED IN SCOTLAND IN 2023
FROM SELECTED CASK NO. 123

Samarkand. The fortress of rock, a life away from other lives, the final and fatal haven at the end of every escape from one’s own reality, one’s own destiny. The “turquoise city” for millennia at the heart of the routes beaten by merchants, travelers, architects, pilgrims, warriors, conquerors. The cradle of stories and legends passed down by a wide range of cultures.

We too make port at our own Samarkand, the final and inescapable endpoint of a journey, a search for exactness. Here we unearth a perfect alcoholometric reduction nudging this spirit to the threshold of 46.2% via three decades of aging. A balanced and symmetrical fusion of tannins and alcohol. No rushed innovation. No accelerated maturation programme, no software, no apps. Simply, the same rigorous processes.

This whisky is now in our pantheon, tributing justice to the glory of Speyside and which is instrumental and will be instrumental to new generations of believers to discover what eau de vie was when the world simply went slower.

It is hard to sketch out final tasting notes: this 1997 Macallan is a product which will evolve over time and yet retain all Speyside qualities par excellence. For now we find honey, figs, morello cherries, vanilla, dates liquorice, tobacco and cocoa. An old-style whisky fully reproducing the qualities which make its origins famous.

“Everything I have heard about Samarkand is true, except the fact that it is more beautiful than I imagined."

Expression attributed to Alexander the Great