“For the price this is a fine expression…rich and vibrant…”

“The Macallan 10 year old is vibrant and rich…”

“For the age, this whisky is well rounded. It is rich…and vibrant…”

C’mon guys (and gal). Enough already. First, let’s not rewrite each other’s reviews. Second, just because The Macallan is indeed royalty in the Scotch whisky world, doesn’t mean that we do not owe it to our rulers to be critical toward their betterment. Sure, I do realize that if we were all stranded on a deserted island “bad taste is better than no taste” (Bennett), but really? Should we commend something as satisfactory and thereby lead the masses astray, or shall we encourage toward excellence and thereby set before those same masses what will lift them to another level of splendor? (I should mention that even though The Macallan 10 year old Fine Oak is very affordable and drinkable to the newbie, I am once again feeling a bit rascally, which is to say that at this late hour I am on the edge of combining honesty with brutality as I did in my review of the Dalmore Sherrywood 21 and as I confirmed in the review of the Dalmore Gran Reserva as well.

I suppose that if there is a preference to simply recycle the words of others, allow for me to provide my review in the same way. I shall first set the pace for this and say “what is food to one, is to others bitter poison” (Lucretius).

The Macallan 10 year old Fine Oak edition is not the whisky I hoped it would be, and such “hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man” (Nietzsche). My hope was for something sweet, as so many Macallans who have given their love before. This hopefulness! This love! “O what a heaven is love, O what a hell” (Dekker). Instead, the slightness of what sweet could be, is washed in a fog of something bitter and burned. And “the fog comes… It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on” (Sandburg). Thankfully.

The palate gives what the nose expected. There is honey and fruit, maybe even mixed fruit jelly, but still, these are only suggestions and underscores to what could be, as if these very possibilities have voices to cry, “We are always getting ready to live, but never living” (Emerson).

The finish is long, and because of the aforementioned wantings, its “time buries us” (de Assis).

To conclude, well, I shall say that this 10 year old edition needed more time in the cask to become itself, or shall we steal Don Quixote’s words and offer “time ripens all things. No man is born wise.” And then allow me to follow such wisdom with another saying more pertinent to where we began, that is, “honor wears different coats to different eyes” (Tuchman). This may be the whisky of choice for some, but I humbly implore you, do the review, decide for yourself, for “there are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times” (Voltaire).

Well, actually, I don’t totally agree with that statement. But I’ve already given a thorough exposition of this in the Scoresby review.