Macallan's two 12-year-olds are the value

Five Macallans are on the shelf with a finding, and they split cleanly in two. The two 12-year-olds sit below their flavour-crowd, the ten whiskies the model rates nearest each on taste, which is to say they undercut the drams closest to them in style. The Classic Cut and the older Double Casks sit well above theirs, the 15 and the 18 at about double. For a distillery whose whole reputation is sherried richness at a premium, finding the value in the entry bottles is the useful surprise of the week.

The Macallan 12 Double Cask is the one to start with, because it is the headline. It is the sherried Speyside benchmark a lot of people cut their teeth on: dried-fruit sweetness, orange peel and leather, a little ginger and pepper for grip. At $137 against a crowd of $263 it sits about $126 under — roughly 48% below what its taste-peers charge. That reads as a genuine bargain for the style, and it is the clearest value call in the range. One caution travels with it, in the footnote below: the taste-crowd for these Macallans spans a very wide range of prices, so treat the crowd figure as a signpost to the value rather than a precise mark.

The Sherry Oak 12 is the other bottle sitting under its crowd, and it is the more traditional of the two — matured wholly in sherry-seasoned oak rather than part bourbon-cask. It drinks richly sherried: baking spice and dark cake, dried fruit, leather and toffee. At $170 against a crowd of $240 it sits about $70 under, roughly 29% below its taste-peers. It costs a little more than the Double Cask and gives you the fuller sherry style for it. Between the two 12-year-olds, the Double Cask is the better value on the numbers and the Sherry Oak is the richer glass; both undercut their peers, which is not a sentence you often write about Macallan.

The Classic Cut is where the premiums start. It is a limited yearly release at higher strength, big and sherried — oloroso-cask wood, cake and honey, a run of toffee. At $245 against a crowd of $140 it sits about $105 over, roughly 75%. That is a real premium over the whiskies that taste nearest it, and it is the price of a cask-strength-leaning annual edition and the Macallan name. It is a fine whisky; it is not a value one.

Then the age-statement Double Casks, the deep end. The 15 Years Old sits at $378 against a crowd of $187, about $191 over, roughly 102%. The 18 Years Old sits at $636 against a crowd of $317, about $319 over, roughly 101%. Both carry no tasting notes of their own in the data, so I will keep to the model's read of a rich, sherry-led profile and say nothing more about the glass. On price, both ask about double what their taste-peers do. That is the Macallan age-statement premium in its purest form, and it is a knowing purchase: people buying the 18 are buying the badge and the age as much as the liquid, and most of them know it. Neither carries its own tasting notes in the data, so I will not pretend to tell you how the extra years show in the glass; what I can say is that the price is a long way ahead of what the model's nearest matches cost.

A word on what the crowd is, since it carries every figure above. The whiskies the model rates nearest each Macallan are its closest neighbours on taste — other sherried and richly matured malts. So a bottle sitting under its crowd is undercutting genuine like-for-like company, not whisky in general, and that is what makes the two 12-year-olds interesting. The same spread that makes the entry bottles look good is also, on the older bottles, wide, so lean on it for direction rather than to the dollar. The shape of the range, though, is plain: the value is at the bottom and the premium climbs steeply with the age statement.

Here is how I would buy it. If you want the sherried Macallan style at a fair price, the 12 Double Cask at $137 is the buy, and it undercuts its taste-peers doing it. If you want the fuller, all-sherry-oak version and will pay a little more for it, the Sherry Oak 12 at $170 is the one, and it too comes in under its crowd. The Classic Cut at $245 is for the drinker who wants the higher-strength annual release and accepts the premium. And the 15 and the 18, at $378 and $636, are badge buys: lovely whisky, priced at about double their peers, bought for the age and the name by people who have already decided. Value at the bottom, occasion at the top, and nothing in between that I would call a bargain.