Macallan Night on Earth: First Light
Seasonal Limited Edition | 43% ABV
Score: 5/10
Average.
TL;DR
Despite the flash, it’s easy to tune it out
Hurried
I’m up against it today - tight on time.
This evening I’m heading down the Kintyre peninsula for the Campbeltown Malts Festival and all of the fun that it offers - even when the weather forecast is as frightening as it is this week. Glen Scotia, Glengyle and Springbank - alongside all manner of other brands and festivities - await with the best of people too. Probably under umbrellas.
However, the Dramface submissions hopper is running a little dry. It’s common, especially as we move into warmer weather, and we can sometimes drop a day or two at this time of year. No big deal, but in an effort to lead by example, I’m trying hard to help top things up.
You would think that means I’ll be succinct, to-the-point, precise and parsimonious with my word count.
Okay that sentence is deliberately written to hit home a point about me because, as we all might know, I’m horribly verbose. After almost every article I submit is edited, built and published, I re-read it with horror at the number of words and complete sentences I could’ve easily cut out. Apologies to all readers with a sensitive eye for such things. Funny how it’s not until it’s live that you notice it.
There are no limits here and everyone can freestyle as much as they like, but I know I take it to extremes. If you’d told me, even a few years ago, I’d be publishing my written words on the internet I’d have known you to be immediately mad. Yet, these days, I think I’m gradually just settling with it; leaning into it even. Why use a sentence when there’s space for a paragraph, right? Anyway, I hear you, I could use AI to tidy things up a bit.
There’s a place for AI to help with productivity, structure, ideas and certainly writing and grammar. But I don’t. I just don’t. I prefer the foibles of the human mind, even when they frustrate. So I avoid the draw, even when it could help me - and all of you - go about things in a much quicker fashion.
I am also unbelievably fatigued with AI slop everywhere. Aren’t we all? It’s in everything we touch now - even some whisky labels - and we’re starting to spot it at a hundred paces. We’re recognising where it has a place, and where it has no business whatsoever. Like so many things in modern life, it’s alarming, frightening, difficult to predict and often hilariously unfathomable. The thing that no one asked for and no one knew we needed, but - just because we can - we do.
I suspect that you’re tired too, the occasional funny comic strips or amusing cat-versus-dog skits don’t make any of it worthwhile. I’ve just tried to tune it all out. Ignore it. Move on. I don’t need it for my daily life and I don’t seek it out. It’s there, always there, but I’ve bailed out now. The alternatives are far, far more interesting.
You see the segue into today’s bottle already, don’t you? And that, dear readers, is Wally’s shortest ever intro piece to a review.
Should you prefer the shortened Wally in future, I’ll include a poll at the bottom. I think you can AI that sort of thing…
Review
Macallan Night on Earth First Light, Seasonal Limited Edition, marriage of sherry seasoned American and European oak and ex-bourbon casks, 43% ABV
£100 paid and still plenty of availability
I know many of you may be surprised to see such a bottle in a Dramface review but, as enthusiasts who’ve departed HMS Macallan long ago, we can’t continually knock something without trying it - or at least try to understand it. I had a reason to purchase this for a very specific purpose and - before I throw the ridiculously over-fussy (although assuredly not AI) packaging in the recycling - I thought I’d share it with you too.
Everything about this bottle speaks to me in a very clear and obvious manner: this-is-not-for-you. But it’s single malt whisky from one of the landscape’s legendary distilleries and, should I follow my own belief, it’s not what’s made - it’s what’s sold. So, for comparison’s sake, I bought it.
Score: 5/10
Average.
TL;DR
Despite the flash, it’s easy to tune it out
Nose
Sweet orchard fruits: red apples and warm applesauce. Vanilla and cinnamon too, some other fruits manifest: dried apricots and mangoes. Clear honey, soft brown sugars, polished oak. Altogether sweet and predictable, but pleasant.
Palate
Not quite diabetes, but close. It feels like a very deliberate exercise in sweet-and-easy, and the sweet part has been nailed.
Honestly, at the risk of appearing lazy, copy and paste my nosing notes here, because that’s vaguely what you’ll find on the palate. You know exactly how this tastes, I promise you.
Don’t add too much water though, it does deconstruct quite spectacularly and next time you’ll reach for a Johnnie Walker Gold instead, still too pricey for what it is, but half the price for a similar experience.
The Dregs
Most of the next bit writes itself, but here goes.
This is not even close to being a bad whisky. It’s actually pretty decent, if a little sickly sweet for my personal tastes. It is, however, a bad product. I need to share why.
The ‘Night on Earth’ series is a seasonal release, no doubt intended to sell more bottles of whisky for Hogmanay, or whatever you call the shift into New Year’s Day where you are. This time around they collaborated with New Zealand artist Bonnie Brown, which is cool and all, but I suspect she had not much to do with making the whisky selection remotely interesting and everything to do with making the packaging so striking.
I’ll admit, if I place myself in different shoes, there’s something to be admired about the aesthetic of the box; the opening and the ceremony of it all. But for me - in a whisky context - it’s all just easy-to-ignore, superfluous fluff. It’s almost like this should be an Easter release and the reveal should be a chocolate egg, rather than a bottle of malt whisky. I am also unable to avoid considering how much the multi-layered box and fiddly bits must have cost. I know that’s me, but I’m far from alone there.
What’s worse, and I can say this confidently, I’ve paid £100 for something that tastes as generic as (decent) whisky can taste. It’s a vatting of ex-sherry seasoned American and European oak, with ex-bourbon American oak. Literally, the Whisky-for Dummies 101 make-up of almost every supermarket shelf offering that exists, in any blend or malt. What is the point of constant special, limited releases when they’re all almost identical? We know what it is. It’s cynical, but perhaps it works from a business point-of-view. As mentioned, it’s not intended for me.
The liquid may be made at Macallan but, lest we forget, that’s a new distillery these days. I suspect that a significant proportion (perhaps all?) of the liquid in this bottle is likely to be made at the new distillery and potentially therefore less than nine years old. Possibly. It does sip well, so forgive me if there’s old Macallan in there, but without any details about age on the bottle it’s understandable if I choose to believe it’s new malt, from a brand-new distillery.
It’s pretty, sweet and easy to drink, no doubt, but it’s a masterclass in something that AI could easily contrive - mediocre, overly-embellished, overly-priced, generic whisky. I honestly think it would struggle to perform in a line up amongst the swathes of excellent blends available today for less than half its price. And those things are genuinely cool these days, and far less contrived.
The antidote? Well, as you know I’m in a rush travelling to it this evening. I hope to see some of you there.
Score: 5/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. WMc
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At the point of this article’s publication, Macallan does not appear in the Dramface Top 40.
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