Ah, the vaunted Macallan Rare Cask. This was on my bucket list since my early days of reviewing whisky. Now that I’ve learned more about the genre, I’m less excited than I was back then, but after trying this at a tasting event 4 years ago, I felt I owed it to myself to try this. So here we are. Side note: This is an older bottling from when these had the lighter, scarlet-colored packaging. There is no year-release indicated, so it’s clearly an older bottling, just impossible to pinpoint. Nose: Very much Macallan. All kinds of red fruit. Plum, cranberry, date, fig, raisin. Dried apricot and gala apple. New car leather. Vanilla, caramel, butterscotch, and toffee. Pound cake. Macadamia, pecan, and almond. Orange citrus. 1.25 Palate: A powerful pop of raisin, date, fig, plum, apple, and apricot. Plenty of vanilla, butterscotch, caramel, and toffee. Milk chocolate and orange citrus. Pound cake and more gala apple. So much of that. Cinnamon and oak. 1 Finish: Almond and macadamia. Orange and milk chocolate. Vanilla, toffee, butterscotch, and caramel. Some of the plum, now with golden raisin. Moderate length. 1 You’d be hard-pressed to find a cleaner whisky. Classic Macallan profile. It’s really likable and easy-going. But let’s skip right to the price. Was this worth $425? Absolutely not. Now I’m fully aware that overpaid for this one. Doesn’t matter. I often feel that the whiskies write these reviews, and I’m just a conduit. Unfortunately, every now and again, there is an element of the experience that is so powerful that it steals the forefront of the review from the whisky itself, which would normally be the sole focus of every review. 3.0/5. I’m sure I can find this cheaper—significantly cheaper. So I may return and improve the score. I had this at a 3.75 before considering VFM, but I docked 3/4 of a star for the absurd price tag for something that is sold vaguely as a blend of their top 1% of casks. Well, it’s a perfectly tasty and pleasant whisky, but for their amount of money, I need an age statement, or a more respectable ABV, or some distinguishing quality that separates this from their more common products.