Macallan Teams Up With Bentley Motors For A $50k Single Malt Whisky

The Macallan is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year by releasing an unlikely collaboration with Bentley Motors, according to a press release shared with Tasting Table. The two luxury brands certainly have an eye for craft, and their dedication to quality shines through with The Macallan Horizon single malt scotch whisky. There's so much here to unpack and get excited about, but with a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $50,000 per bottle, this release is only going to be enjoyed by the wealthiest among us – if the limited-release bottles are ever even opened at all.

A unique twist on the collaboration process, The Macallan Horizon's bottle is designed and produced by Bentley Motors and is a central feature of the product as opposed to being purely a storage container. Unlike most scotch bottles, it is designed to lay horizontally as an intimation of the luxury cars Bentley is famous for. The glass that contains the scotch is surrounded by a twisting copper frame, which contains recycled copper from Macallan's own decommissioned copper pot stills. 

An inlay of oak wood upcycled directly from the barrels the whisky was aged in is finished with Bentley's signature Crown Cut Walnut veneer, giving the scotch an elegance that can hardly be matched by its peers. Macallan's Master Whisky Maker, Kirsteen Campbell, hand-selected the six sherry-seasoned oak casks that would house The Macallan Horizon during its maturation process. Jaume Ferras, Creative Director at The Macallan, called it "the most complex and visionary whisky project that The Macallan has embarked upon."

The Macallan is well known for creating several of the world's most valuable whiskies — such as the bottle of Macallan 1926 that hit Sotheby's auction in 2023 – and The Macallan Horizon is the culmination of two centuries of expertise wrapped in a sleeve of purely artistic manufacturing. But we do have some questions. A significant portion of the press release is focused on the bottle itself, while the scotch inside is given short shrift. 

We discover that the flavor profile has notes of dark chocolate-covered Brazil nuts and crystallized ginger while the oak and leather nose are meant to convey the scent of a Bentley's interior. We're also told that the scotch will come in at a symbolic 46.6% alcohol by volume, which harkens back to the six casks, the six materials used, and The Macallan's Six Pillars (the company's mission statement).

Jokes about the mark of the beast aside, the glaring absence of an age statement is somewhat baffling. Perhaps it's a custom of wealth we aren't familiar with – something along the lines of "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it." But it's a bit unusual since the distillery has no qualms about displaying the age statement of the Macallan 18-year Sherry Oak Whisky, for example. We may be looking too much into it, but, combined with how much care was given to the bottle's design, we're assuming that this is a scotch that's meant to be seen and not tasted. In any case, the secondary market prices for this unicorn whisky will be jaw-dropping.