A bottle of The Macallan 1974 Single Highland Malt Scotch Whisky from the Fine & Rare collection. This was matured in sherry cask number 929038 for 30 years and bottled in 2004.
This bottle has unique reference number RAN5E9, it was registered with the distillery on 12 July 2006.
The Macallan Fine & Rare collection showcases some of the oldest, rarest Macallans ever bottled. The series covers most of the 20th century with selected vintages from 1926 to 1991 and reveals how the distillery style has changed over time. In the 1920s the malt was mainly used as a 'top dressing' for blends, the 1930s saw a dearth of sherry casks due to the Spanish civil war, and a coal shortage during World War II led to peat being used to dry the barley in the 1940s.
Some expressions in the collection were drawn from single casks and bottled at cask strength, while others were re-bottled for the Fine & Rare series from 1970s and 1980s bottlings.
The Macallan distillery was founded in 1824 by barley farmer Alexander Reid. What began as two stills housed in a wooden shed has grown to a 36 still site today.
In 1892 the distillery passed to Roderick Kemp, former owner of Talisker, whose descendants retained ownership until the 1990s. By 1975 the then 21 still plant was regarded as an important malt for blends. The downturn of the early 1980s led The Macallan to focus on the emerging single malt category and it began to establish itself as one of the world's most popular and collectible single malts. The management team repositioned the distillery as a 'first-growth whisky' and oversaw an innovative advertising campaign (commemorated in The Archival Series which began in 2015). In the mid 1990s The Macallan was purchased by Highland Distillers and became part of Edrington in 1999. The first single cask bottling, Exceptional 1, was launched in 2000.
The Macallan has become known for its investment potential as well as the quality of its whisky, with rare bottles regularly breaking records at auction.
In 2017 the new £100 million Macallan distillery was completed.
This Macallan 1974 30 Year Old Fine & Rare sold at our online auction for £11,400
