In pursuit of luxury cachet, Scotch still needs to remember the liquid

“Sorry, did you think this was a whisky launch?” That’s quite a disconcerting thing to hear when you’re attending what appears to be, er, a whisky launch, especially as the venue for the event is a distillery in the heart of Speyside. But then the announcement of The Macallan Horizon – the “prototype” whisky resulting from the tie-up between the Edrington-owned single malt and luxury car maker Bentley Motors – was a whisky launch like no other. For a start, there wasn’t any whisky. Well, that’s not quite true. There was whisky – various Macallan expressions were tasted during the day – just not the whisky in question. Nor were there any details of the Horizon single malt in terms of age, maturation, and so on, even though we were told the liquid had already been finalised by Macallan master whisky maker Kirsteen Campbell. Nor was there any pricing information. Instead, this was an event that borrowed the marketing lexicon of the car industry, where launches are teased in advance, and details slowly and progressively revealed. Packaging and concept unveiled in August; whisky, pricing, etc to follow in early 2023; decanters (they’re never called bottles these days) shipped a few months later. In this context, the question that began this article – posed to me at dinner by a Bentley representative – makes a little more sense. Perhaps this wasn’t a whisky launch after all. But then what was it? Partnerships between single malt Scotch and the luxury automotive industry aren’t new. Bowmore has been working with Aston Martin since 2019, while Glenturret – another Edrington-owned single malt until its sale in 2018 – has joined forces with Jaguar. These tie-ins illustrate the depth to which Scotch whisky has penetrated the luxury lifestyle sphere; the fact Bentley, Aston Martin and Jaguar see value in joint ventures with distillers testifies to single malt’s status in the eyes of the global HNWI community. The Macallan has long been a pioneer here, the single malt’s choice of partners charting the ascent of high-end Scotch up the luxury food chain. In another era, it hooked up with satirical magazine Private Eye; later it was Magnum Photos, crystal maker Lalique, watchmaker Urwerk and celebrated restaurant El Celler de Can Roca. Now it’s Bentley. Glenturret offers an interesting comparison here. In 2018, Edrington sold it to Silvio Denz, owner of Lalique and veteran of numerous Macallan projects. The mission under the new regime – hence the Jaguar venture – has been to transform Glenturret into a luxury icon. Nothing wrong with ambition, but if you want to inhabit the luxury space with credibility and conviction, you need substance to match the style. In Glenturret’s case, its claims to be Scotland’s oldest working distillery are open to question and, in the past, it’s rarely been seen as a single malt – better-known instead for hosting visitor attraction The Famous Grouse Experience, and for the mouse-killing exploits of a distillery cat named Towser. So there’s a little work still to do. Meanwhile, Scotch purists may sniff at what they see as The Macallan’s luxury affectations but the crystal carafes and bespoke whisky cabinets of today are built on the foundations of the astonishingly good whiskies of yesteryear, such as Macallan 18. There’s still currency in that status but it doesn’t confer immortality. I’m certain there’s huge value in the coming together of two creative businesses such as The Macallan and Bentley to share ideas and offer insights; Scotch whisky and car making, like all industries, can surely only benefit from an external perspective to battle against the kind of silo thinking that masquerades as tradition. However, rather like the flavour of a fine single malt or the aesthetic appeal of a sleek car design, balance is crucial – the partnership should be one of equals, rather than one in which it feels as if one party is doing the other a huge favour through their involvement. The packaging of The Macallan Horizon is stunning, and the willingness of the business to look beyond its traditional audience and marketing playbook entirely laudable. But, based on the evidence to date, it feels as if a single malt brand has been slightly consumed by an automotive brand; in its eagerness to explore a different strand of luxury, The Macallan risks leaving something of itself behind. That remarkable packaging looks more like a concept car than a whisky bottle (which, I appreciate, is kind of the point). You can’t stand it on its base, and extracting the decanter from the external packaging involves a slightly cumbersome twisting procedure for which supple joints are a prerequisite. Then again, how many Macallan Horizon decanters will be opened, or their contents consumed? This is the world that The Macallan inhabits now: the world of ultra-bespoke limited editions and hushed auction rooms, where what was once a drink is something to be locked in a glass box and admired from a respectful distance. It’s easy to be simply cynical about this transformation, and to trot out the usual platitudes about Scotch losing its soul in the process of chasing the money as if it were some kind of Faustian pact with Mammon; the flipside is that, in the past, a product that was meticulously crafted and nurtured for decades was criminally undervalued in the market. I have no problem in Scotch exploring the luxury marketplace, particularly if the consequent halo effect raises the profile and reputation of the entire industry. But I want it to do so with confidence and as an equal with the new partners it finds; most of all, I want it to never lose sight of what gave it this status in the first place: the liquid. But then I could be wrong. After all, I really did think I was attending a whisky launch.