New Macallan 12 Sherry Oak vs Old 

I’ve given up on Macallan.

Great review. Can't imagine justifying paying the LCBO price for this bottle. Almost double the price of Glendronach 12, I just don't get it.

I agree with your comments. I have been drinking twelve since the 90's. during covid myself and two buddies compared the old to the new and there was literally no comparison. The old 12 was noticeably better, richer, fuller. I think that part of the secret is that all the new macs use sherry "SEASONED" casks, lol. Not as good as casks that exclusively stored sherry for long periods of time. We then pulled out the new mac 18 and compared it to the old mac12 and blind tasting the old mac12 felt much smoother and more rounder and easily as old. we all picked the old 12 over the new 18

I totally agree Jeremy! The old version may be made with actual Sherry casks not just Sherry “Seasoned” casks! Also, the new seems much younger. The new has now Wow factor any longer. Very disappointed with the new one. Will not purchase it again. Compare this 12 with the new (dark) Glenallachie 12 and the Mac is absolutely blown away! Great review as always! Thank you Sir!

The old 12 drinks higher than 43%. Even its label is looking vintage now. Excellent timely review, Jeremy. This is great contribution.

I suspect the difference is primarily due to the older bottles containing a small percentage of 15 year or maybe even 18 year whisky.

$150C that's ridiculous! Not sure what that is in usd but I'm sure it's $100+... which is RIDICULOUS! I was able to score a red box mac 12 for $51 last year. I still see the red box for around $70-$80, maybe even a few in the $60's... maybe I should snap em up! But with these new Glenallachie CS for about the same price it's hard to justify even the red box version. Great comparison and review as always, Cheers!

I stopped buying Macallan for over a year now. Neither quality nor price tag justify spending big money on their products. Still have few bottles of 12 and 18 from 2015 and 2016 but don’t have the gut to open them out anymore cause I can sell 12 yo for upward of 300$ and I already know whisky itself isn’t a 300$ quality whisky.

Just paid 108$ for this in the US very lackluster performance vs my Aaron and balvenie. Which both cost me 60-70$ usd.

Thanks for the review. I'm doing this fight now.

I remember buying Mac 12 yr. average price $32 usd. When the average price hit $42 I stop buying. Glendronach 12 bleq it out the water for the same price.

Fortunately the 12 is competitively priced with other 12 year olds in the DC area, however I go to Glendronach 12 and Tamdhu 12 for my sherry bombs. The only time I get the Mac these days is when I go to bar and choices are very limited. Sure sherry casks are expensive, and with the new distillery they need a lot of sherry casks. My guess is they are trying to pay down their big renovation costs for the new distillery. I don't notice to big a change between old and new, but I feel your notes are on point.

Still have an unopened bottle of the old one I bought years ago on a trip. Not sure why I haven’t I opened it yet. Might have to crack it soon.

One of my favorite whiskey all time. I think i've down 3 cases of it before. because the price for the quality of the older version is topshelf. Now resellers are capitalizing on this. I'm really really glad i found one last 2019 just for $60usd in Japan in a local daiso store surprisingly.

Great insights into the change. Cheers!

Around $75 here for the new one. $150 cad is def way too high. New bottling def has a sharper edge like you said, more ginger and pencil shavings. Less rich orange chocolate and oily mouth feel. Well done bud!!

The best bottle of Macallan I ever had was one of the "older" ones in the maroon box which I bought around 2015...it was awesome. I have yet to find a new black box Mac 12 that has matched it. The newer ones just seem "rough" to me...or "sharp" as you say. Now for the price in the US of near $100 bucks where I live, I find that JW 18 Ultimate is a better buy for me....or JW Green for that matter.

Really interesting one. Thanks. Alas my old bottles only exist in memory. For roughly half of the money where I am, I’ll take my Glenfarclas 12 every day.

I love the Old Macallan 12, but at $150 cdn, I will not be trying the new one.

Thank you for the review. I had been looking for this specific comparative review for a while. Keep up the good work.

I tried both new Sherry and double cask and I actually prefer double cask version. double cask is cheaper too

Use to love the Macallan. But a soon realised there is so many better whisky out there. Cheers.

Great review! I feel the same way but couldnt pin point it. Nowadays I only drink Tamdhu 15YO sherry whenever I want to drink Macallan 12YO sherry as it tastes better for me with very similar flavor profile!

Unlike the Macallan 18 which changed drastically with the new bottling in 2018, the Macallan 12 did not change with the new bottling. It changed it around 2014 (a little over 12 years after Edrington took over... post-Edrington caskings) when you could tell that the color of the whisky suddenly changed from deep red/mahogany to a much lighter color. The Edrington group purchased Macallan in 1999. And what do you know... in 2018 (about 18 years after the Edrington group took over), the taste of the 18 sherry oak apparently fell off a cliff. Something changed about the caskings in 2000 after Edrington took over. Cheaper casks? Cheaper malt? Cost cutting galore. Macallan's reputation is going downhill. Fast. I suspect the best casks are being saved for the uber-expensive releases and the tried and true 18 year olds are getting cheap casks.

Great versus👍🏻 Pretty good value still in Sweden though 65usd👍🏻 Agree that the older ones are better but still for me one of the best unpeated 12y🤗

In Dec 2022 are there any old bottles left out in the wild or only from resellers?

agree with your review, i like the old bottling better. i think the sherry is more pronounced in the old one, and yes it is more viscous, in my experience. here in the Philippines, the old bottle is around 125 USD while the new bottle is about 100 USD (all secondary market prices).

The new Sherry Oak is one my go to whiskies now, I guess I am in that phase. It is expensive for 12y, 43% ABV, but for it's one of the cheapest Macallans, so I buy it.

Good 12 yo sherry whiskies: Glenfarclas, Glenrothes, Glendronach , Aberlour. . .. Decent ones : Dufftown12, Aberfeldy12, TOmatin12 . . . for a price of 2 of these, i will surely get 2.

May I ask what you use to gas your whiskies? Thank you for another interesting review. This bottle is no comparison to an Edradour of similar vintage.......Slainte'

the old bottle label doesn’t have word “seasoned”, maybe it’s actually matured right way

I am surprised nobody in the comments send to have mentioned Highland Park when they compare sherry cask expressions. Surely their 18 compares well to this 12 at roughly the same price point.

Like probably everyone else, used to love the 12yo when I could regularly get it for $40-$50. At the prices they want now, zero chance. Even if money was no issue and the new one tasted as good as before (which it appears it doesn’t), I wouldn’t get it b/c it’s simply not good enough to justify the price. Plus, if money really wasn’t an issue, I’d be chest deep in Campbeltown whisky & super rare bottles 😂

Great review. I agree 100%. The 12 is way too thin. Cheers G.

The new is seadoned casks with 2 years of wine. The old is old sherry spanish casks. I see this casks in spain in bodegas and my friends wen i buy some in spain...but ok...

Great review, and completely agree with your assessment. I sound like a broken record when talking/shaming Macallan; they really fell off the wagon. The only new bottles that I've purchased from Macallan in recent years are the Classic Cuts. Question for ya, do you know of a specific bottle and or whisky that is better (quality/value) now than 5-10 years ago?

I’m buying it at $70 ish depending where. I remember getting the older bottle for $45-$50 US. ! Dumb me. I should have stocked up. I think it’s still worth that here in the US. We’ll see how long that lasts. It’s a shame you’re getting robbed for an entry level whisky. Still, I would much rather live in Canada 😏

MC12 is my favorite scotch, so far anyways. I can get it for about $60 after tax. Ive heard much worse in terms of pricing for this bottle.

I’ve seen nothing confirming a change in recipe with the new design bottle. An older bottle will always taste slightly different because it does undergo slight changes in the bottle. The rest of it is in your head.

what's going on with Macallan here? I haven't bought any of their new bottlings..the new stuff is so far off from what the juice used to be and what the brand represents. Did they change master distiller or have the standards gone down? I know quality sherry casks are hard to come by but there are plenty of other distilleries out there making high quality sherry whisky for a fraction of the price! I hope Macallan sees this video and straighten up. I'm so disappointed b/c I love the old Macallan bottlings!

Prices have gone through the roof. The quality has gone down the toilet 🚽

maybe do a blind taste ??

Could seasoned barrels be the main difference based on 12 years?

Glenallachie 12 for the best 12, and Macallan 12 who? Non chill, non colored with the usuall Billy Walker sherry influence.

The new 12 goes for $68 locally. It sure is not as good as the old one that sold for $50.

Too easy to get stroppy about Macallan and I don't want to. The price of the 12 and the low abv (40% in the U.K) is completely uncompetitive. Spoiler alert, I actually like Macallan and my harsh words for that distillery reflect my disappointment in the decline of the quality and the poor value. This bottle, for example, is twice the price it ought to be. We wouldn't be complaining if it was half the price for crying out loud! The once fantastic 18 has suffered the same fate. I've been saying it for years but the distillery jumped on the Premium bandwagon when times were Good and got away with it. Take it from me, we are entering a period of Not Good and distilleries flogging overpriced stuff will be found out and called out and we will stop buying. The reason the rich buy stuff like Macallan is because they have a good reputation from hard core whisky nerds like us. When that reputation diminishes so will the desire of the wealthy to buy the stuff. There's a time lag, of course, but let's look at the wreckage of Japanese whisky and some of the associated spin offs like Bowmore. There are a number of quality, high profile, whisky brands currently ruining their reputation because of the short term gold rush. Who buys Aberlour 10 any more at £50 a bottle? Macallan have fallen into the trap. Whisky distilleries and their owners have been behaving like investors and bankers before 2008 but the bubble will burst. Prices for everything are about to go up and whisky (and bourbon) will seem like an overpriced and unnecessary luxury.

150CAD for that shit!? "Surely you can't be serious." EDIT: I'm anxiously awaiting the "other shoe-drop" on this Macallan nonsense. How long can they thrive on reputation alone? Are their diehard customers really that ignorant?? (It would seem so at this point.)

I’ve never enjoyed MacAllan. I’m by no means an expert. I’ve had >140 different scotches and none of the Macallans I’ve had (12 Sherry, Triple Cask, Double Cask) crack my top 100. So overrated and overpriced imo