The long sherry cask

The Macallan was founded in 1824 at Easter Elchies, Craigellachie, in Speyside. Sherry-cask maturation is still what the house is built on: at The Macallan the cask is the structure of the whisky, and everything else follows from it.

The maison holds itself to its Six Pillars: the Spiritual Home, the Curiously Small Stills, the Finest Cut, the Exceptional Oak Casks, Natural Colour and the Peerless Spirit. When I cook for The Macallan, I cook to those six, and each age statement gets its own plate. A generic Speyside pairing would flatten what the maison has spent two centuries making.

In September 2022 The Macallan released its James Bond 60th Anniversary editions. Shin’Labo was named one of six authorised establishments in Kuala Lumpur, and I hosted the official launch dinner.

Bond has never been only about what is in the glass. The car matters as much as the drink. So I brought in BMW, a relationship that goes back to The Society at Enfin in 2017, and the BMW i7 joined the launch. James Won, 007, The Macallan and BMW met in one room as one launch.

The night opened on a red carpet, and the room was full. I cooked around the bottle: the cocktail bar of the Bond world, the sherry-cask house style, and the yōshoku room that gave both an unexpected partner. The dinner sold out, the anniversary bottles sold through, and the launch editions were covered by Prestige and Robb Report Malaysia.

What it proved to me is that four names, each strong on its own, can stand together without one diluting the others, provided the room is built for it.

The Dining Experience ran from 15 February 2022 to 14 February 2024 in three formats: the Whisky Dining Experience, a Cocktail Activation, and a Premium Spirit Activation across all three rooms. The Krug Chef’s Table had moved to Shin’Labo the same month, so Champagne and sherry-cask Speyside ran side by side in one room for two years. It was the hardest cross-maison work I have done.

Its flagship was Rich Cacao, the first edition of The Macallan’s Harmony Collection, made with Jordi Roca of El Celler de Can Roca. The Macallan’s Whisky Maker, Polly Logan, chose casks with rare chocolate notes, and the box was made from the cacao husks left over from chocolate-making. Edrington Malaysia allocated ninety-four bottles of Rich Cacao to Shin’Labo.

On 15 December 2022 Shin’Labo hosted The Macallan M Experience. The M decanter stood in its own lit niche beneath the Macallan estate mark. The menu ran from aged sashimi with cocoa butter, and Hokkaido scallop with goose fat and single-origin cacao nib, to kamo katsu with a chenpi à l’orange sauce, goose-fat cured lobster with carbonara tagliatelle, and the signature don of sea cucumber and foie gras.

The Dining Experience ended in February 2024. What I keep is what the work taught me: that sherry is structure, that each age statement is its own expression, and that a plate should meet a whisky on the whisky’s terms.

More from The Macallan M Experience at Shin’Labo.