MAGIC IN A BOTTLE

Euan Kennedy is responsible for one of the premier bottles celebrating The Macallan's 200th anniversary. The lead whisky maker tells us how he creates magic in every bottle.

- FARHAN SHAH

EAUN (PRONOUNCED “YOU-WEN”) KENNEDY remembers the exact moment when he knew he had something magical in his hands. Tasked with creating a whisky befitting The Macallan’s 200th-anniversary celebrations, he toiled for the better part of a year to create a dram that could encapsulate the distillery’s past yet point the way forward.

There were no sunbeams shining through the window near his workbench, but he remembers nosing the whisky and looking out across the fields towards the old distillery and its historical signage. “At that moment, I had this intense sense of history on my shoulders, with The Macallan’s past staring back at me,” he says.

However, like all artists, he placed the alcoholic prototype back on his bench and walked away. To ensure the same magic wafted into his senses each time he nosed it, he returned to it several times during the day and the following morning. “I completed this whisky a few weeks before the deadline,” he says. “So, I had some time to leave it on my bench, re-nose it, and check my notes to see if I might have missed anything out.” That dram always delivered.