Macallan Edition No. 3

Silky smooth vanilla, fruity palate

Smooth, sweet and a whiskey finish, like it

The Macallan Edition series: Highly sought after, ridiculously-inflated on the second-hand market, and widely polarizing in terms of quality and value. These are the first things that come to mind. This No. 3 is my first experience with one of these, though I plan to go for 2 and 4 at some point. Let's what all the noise is about. Nose: Quite pungent. After reading the blurb about the involvement of a master perfumer in the creation of this whisky, I had some steep expectations for the nose in particular. The notes I get are more akin to what I'd expect of the Fine Oak series as opposed to the more traditional line. It's sweet and fruity. Heavy orange, honey, green apple, vanilla, and toffee. Some date, plum, fig, grape, and date behind that first layer. Apricot and honeydew tucked in behind that. New couch leather. There's a trace of caramel, likely a result of the heavy use of bourbon barrels in this blend. Much less than I would've expected given the high proportion of ex-bourbon aged malt. Heavy, heavy oak. A little bit of nail polish, which I could do without. But other than that it's solid. Palate: Darker than the nose. The background sherry notes from the nose of poundcake, plum, fig, date, grape, and leather are now at the forefront. Still getting the apple, apricot, and toffee. Fruity tartness and some white chocolate and vanilla ice cream. And once again, it's quite oaky. Black pepper spice as well. While that may sound great, I really have to dig for those notes. Solid palate, though it can’t hold up to the stellar nose. Finish: Oak bomb. It's surprisingly bitter. Some plum and raisin hit heavy. Milk chocolate and orange zest. Beyond that, it's really just cinnamon spice, likely a result of the 48.3 ABV. Medium-long finish. So where does this leave us? I am quite impressed with the nose. Other than the artificial aroma of nail polish, it pretty much hit the mark in every way. From there, however, I was underwhelmed. I wouldn't say it was bad, just that the palate and finish were subpar compared to the nose. I'm here to drink, not to sniff. Ultimately, that's going to hurt the score for this one. This one seems like it was a nose-driven operation from the start. The master perfumer, Roja Dove, certainly held up on his end of the bargain. But this simply was not a $100 whisky. If you want to spend $100 on Macallan, stick with the 15 year. This is really only worth purchasing if you're a die-hard collector like myself. With that being said, I've got to say I respect Macallan's effort here. They are go to great lengths to provide the consumer with insight into the aging process. Painstaking transparency. If you want the box score, check their website, because I'm not about to transcribe paragraphs of info. The point is, a lot of distilleries frivolously pump out sub-par, overpriced, NAS annual-release crap with no conscience. But with this one, I can tell that there was a genuine and concerted effort to produce a top-notch blend. It just didn't pan out. The result is a great nose, and an otherwise middling malt. Yet, I can sense the effort, and thus would not be prejudiced toward the other Mac. Edition releases in the future. Edit: Same night as this above tasting. Been working on it a bit more. Given considerable time in the glass, the palate becomes much more respectable. The notes are the same but become far more pronounced as it sits in the glass. Bumped from 3.25 to 3.75, where it'll stay.