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Introducing The Macallan Time: Space Sherry Cask, the first whisky to be finished in casks seasoned with Valdespino sherry wine, from The Macallan’s bodega in Jerez de la Frontera. The third release in The Macallan’s Time: Space collection, the liquid’s initial maturation took place on The Macallan Estate in Speyside in predominantly European oak sherry-seasoned casks. The whisky was then married in a selection of the 200 Valdespino sherry casks shipped to Scotland for filling in 2024, during the brand’s 200th anniversary year. Kirsteen Campbell, Master Whisky Maker at The Macallan, describes the unique maturation process as “a milestone, shaped by two distinct interactions with sherry seasoned oak.” Casks were crafted in The Macallan’s own cooperages in Jerez and shipped to Scotland for filling in 2024… The Macallan Time: Space Sherry Cask tasting notes Bottled at 44.8% ABV and presented at its natural colour, The Macallan Time: Space Sherry Cask boasts a rich, layered profile. The nose is said to offer sherry-soaked raisins, figs and Medjool dates, alongside sweet frangipane, cinder toffee and caramelised nuts. Dark chocolate truffles are joined by cinnamon, star anise and ginger. On the palate, dried fruits including sultanas, dates and apricots sit alongside rich ginger cake. Treacle toffee, bramble jam and chocolate-coated cherries add further depth, says the distillery. Cloves and cinnamon sticks bring warmth, followed by cocoa nibs and polished oak. Warming wood spices, and a hint of espresso, distinguish the finish. The whisky arrives in the collection’s distinctive circular vessel, designed to represent the continuous flow of past, present and future. The presentation box takes its visual cue from the palomino grapes grown in the Valdespino vineyards, with its circular interior echoing the shape of the grapes and its golden colour reflecting the Andalusian sun. Beer has Oktoberfest. Wine has Beaujolais Nouveau Day. Now whisky has a date of its own. Or, at least, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society would like it to. The Society has launched The Whisky Equinox, an annual occasion intended to mark the point in the year when cooler evenings arrive and whisky drinkers start reaching… Canary Wharf workers, consider this your most important lunch meeting of the week. New pub The Tallyman is celebrating its arrival in the Wharf by giving away 200 free lobster rolls worth £18 each on Thursday 17 September. From midday until 3pm, the first 200 people to visit its outdoor Tallyman Seafood Shack will get… Glen Scotia has turned to a mythical guardian for the fourth whisky in its Icons of Campbeltown series. The penultimate instalment in this five‑part annual release, inspired by the folklore carved into Campbeltown’s 14th‑century market cross, pays tribute to the Griffin, the half-eagle, half-lion creature said to have watched over Campbeltown’s harbour and protected its… Introducing The Macallan Time: Space Sherry Cask, the first whisky to be finished in casks seasoned with Valdespino sherry wine, from The Macallan’s bodega in Jerez de la Frontera. The third release in The Macallan’s Time: Space collection, the liquid’s initial maturation took place on The Macallan Estate in Speyside in predominantly European oak sherry-seasoned casks. The whisky was then married in a selection of the 200 Valdespino sherry casks shipped to Scotland for filling in 2024, during the brand’s 200th anniversary year. Kirsteen Campbell, Master Whisky Maker at The Macallan, describes the unique maturation process as “a milestone, shaped by two distinct interactions with sherry seasoned oak.” The Macallan Time: Space Sherry Cask tasting notes Bottled at 44.8% ABV and presented at its natural colour, The Macallan Time: Space Sherry Cask boasts a rich, layered profile. The nose is said to offer sherry-soaked raisins, figs and Medjool dates, alongside sweet frangipane, cinder toffee and caramelised nuts. Dark chocolate truffles are joined by cinnamon, star anise and ginger. On the palate, dried fruits including sultanas, dates and apricots sit alongside rich ginger cake. Treacle toffee, bramble jam and chocolate-coated cherries add further depth, says the distillery. Cloves and cinnamon sticks bring warmth, followed by cocoa nibs and polished oak. Warming wood spices, and a hint of espresso, distinguish the finish. The whisky arrives in the collection’s distinctive circular vessel, designed to represent the continuous flow of past, present and future. The presentation box takes its visual cue from the palomino grapes grown in the Valdespino vineyards, with its circular interior echoing the shape of the grapes and its golden colour reflecting the Andalusian sun. The Macallan Time: Space Sherry Cask is priced at £1,100. It’s available exclusively from The Macallan Boutique at Harrods, before rolling out to specialist whisky retailers in October. Whisky season now has an official start date, and unique drams to celebrate Beer has Oktoberfest. Wine has Beaujolais Nouveau Day. Now whisky has a date of its own. Or, at least, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society would like it to. The Society has launched The Whisky Equinox, an annual occasion intended to mark the point in the year when cooler evenings arrive and whisky drinkers start reaching… This new Canary Wharf pub is giving away 200 free lobster rolls Canary Wharf workers, consider this your most important lunch meeting of the week. New pub The Tallyman is celebrating its arrival in the Wharf by giving away 200 free lobster rolls worth £18 each on Thursday 17 September. From midday until 3pm, the first 200 people to visit its outdoor Tallyman Seafood Shack will get… Glen Scotia releases 12 Year Old Icons No.4 whisky shaped by Vin Santo casks and Griffin guardian Glen Scotia has turned to a mythical guardian for the fourth whisky in its Icons of Campbeltown series. The penultimate instalment in this five‑part annual release, inspired by the folklore carved into Campbeltown’s 14th‑century market cross, pays tribute to the Griffin, the half-eagle, half-lion creature said to have watched over Campbeltown’s harbour and protected its… Share this:

The Macallan TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask is a 20-year-old single malt Scotch, the third release in the TIME : SPACE Collection and the first Macallan influenced by casks seasoned with the distillery’s own Valdespino sherry. It matured predominantly in European oak sherry-seasoned casks, then was married in a selection of the first 200 casks filled at the Valdespino bodega in Jerez during Macallan’s 2024 bicentenary. Bottled at 44.8% ABV with natural colour, it carries an RRP of £1,100 (around US$1,485, roughly €1,300) for 700ml. It launched on 17 September 2026, exclusively at The Macallan Boutique in Harrods, with wider UK and global availability from October. The Macallan has spent years quietly buying up the sherry supply chain that built its reputation. TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask is the first bottle that shows what that ownership actually tastes like. The headline is simple: this is the first Macallan matured and married in casks seasoned with the brand’s own Valdespino sherry. For a distillery whose entire identity rests on sherry-seasoned oak, that is not a marketing footnote. It is the closing of a loop. The key facts up front. It is a 20 Year Old single malt, bottled at 44.8% ABV with natural colour, 700ml, at an RRP of £1,100. It is the third chapter in the limited-edition TIME : SPACE Collection, and it launched on 17 September 2026 at Harrods before a wider rollout. Why this release matters: Macallan now owns its sherry Sherry-seasoned oak is the single biggest driver of Macallan’s flavour, and for most of its history the distillery bought that seasoning from Spanish bodegas it did not control. That changed when Edrington, Macallan’s owner, acquired the historic Jerez producer Valdespino along with two cooperages, taking ownership of the full sherry-seasoning journey from grape to stave to cask. In its 200th anniversary year in 2024, the team filled the first 200 casks ever seasoned at the Valdespino bodega. TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask is the first whisky to draw on that project, so it is genuinely a first taste rather than a repackaging. Lead whisky maker Euan Kennedy has been candid that the outcome was not a foregone conclusion, noting that when those 200 casks were filled the team did not yet know exactly what they would deliver. Master Whisky Maker Kirsteen Campbell frames it as a milestone in Macallan’s custodianship of its own sherry seasoning. What is the TIME : SPACE Collection? The collection debuted in September 2024 to mark Macallan’s bicentenary. The original TIME : SPACE was an 84 Year Old, the oldest whisky the brand had ever released. Alongside it came TIME : SPACE Mastery, a 5 Year Old and the first release from the new Macallan Distillery, drawing on ex-bourbon barrels, new American oak and sherry casks. This third chapter narrows the focus to sherry cask maturation only. Where Mastery was a snapshot of the distillery in its anniversary moment, Sherry Cask is a statement about where the sherry programme is heading. Each release in the collection shares a circular decanter. The presentation case here takes its cue from the Palomino grapes grown in the Valdespino vineyards and the golden light of Andalusia, tying the whisky visually to the Spanish source of its oak. The whisky: two rounds of sherry-seasoned oak The maturation happens in two distinct stages. The spirit first spent its long life in a selection of predominantly European oak sherry-seasoned casks on the Speyside estate. It was then married in a small batch from those first 200 Valdespino-seasoned casks, giving the whisky a second, more specific layer of sherry influence. At 44.8% ABV with natural colour and no age statement games (a stated 20 years), this sits as a considered, restrained expression rather than a cask-strength sherry bomb. The Macallan TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask: tasting note (official Macallan notes) Nose: sherry-soaked raisins, figs, medjool dates, dark chocolate truffles, cinder toffee, caramelised nuts, warming spice Palate: dried fruit, rich ginger cake, treacle toffee, bramble jam, chocolate-coated cherries, clove, cinnamon, cocoa nib Finish: warming wood spice, a hint of espresso, gentle oak ABV: 44.8% | Cask: European oak sherry-seasoned casks, married in Valdespino sherry-seasoned casks | Age: 20 years | Price: £1,100 (700ml) These are Macallan’s own published notes. We have not yet tasted this release, and will update this piece with our own assessment if we get it in the glass. Price and availability The RRP is £1,100 for a 700ml bottle, which converts to around US$1,485 and roughly €1,300. In the US the bottle is offered at an MSRP of $1,400 through The Macallan Ballot, which ran from 17 to 24 September 2026 and gives collectors first option on the release. In the UK it went on sale exclusively at The Macallan Boutique in Harrods from 17 September 2026, with a wider rollout across UK specialist retailers in October and global availability via themacallan.com. As with most TIME : SPACE bottles, expect it to reach international collectors quickly and to move onto the secondary market not long after. Is it worth £1,100? Be clear-eyed about what this is. TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask is a collector’s bottle first. At £1,100 for a 44.8% 20 Year Old, a meaningful share of the price sits in the provenance and the presentation: the first release from Macallan’s own Valdespino casks, filled in the bicentenary year, in a decanter built to be displayed. For the Macallan completist and the serious sherried-single-malt collector, that story is exactly the point, and the two-stage sherry maturation gives it a real reason to exist beyond the packaging. If what you actually want is 20-year-old sherried Macallan to open and drink, there are less expensive ways into that house style, and the gentle 44.8% ABV means this is built for slow contemplation rather than intensity. Buy it for what it represents and for the collection, not as an everyday pour. What to watch next: this is the first whisky from those 200 Valdespino casks, so it is almost certainly a preview of a broader own-sherry programme to come from Speyside. Frequently asked questions What is The Macallan TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask? It is a 20-year-old single malt Scotch whisky and the third release in Macallan’s limited-edition TIME : SPACE Collection. Bottled at 44.8% ABV, it is the first Macallan influenced by casks seasoned with the brand’s own Valdespino sherry, following the 2024 bicentenary releases. What does The Macallan TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask taste like? According to Macallan’s official notes, the nose offers sherry-soaked raisins, figs, medjool dates, chocolate truffles and cinder toffee. The palate brings dried fruit, ginger cake, treacle toffee, bramble jam and chocolate-coated cherries, with a finish of warming spice, espresso and gentle oak. How much does The Macallan TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask cost? The RRP is £1,100 for a 700ml bottle, which is around US$1,485 and roughly €1,270. In the United States it carries an MSRP of $1,400, offered through The Macallan Ballot. Expect higher prices once bottles reach the secondary market. Where can I buy The Macallan TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask? It launched on 17 September 2026 exclusively at The Macallan Boutique in Harrods, London. A wider UK specialist retail rollout follows in October, alongside global availability via themacallan.com. US buyers were served first through The Macallan Ballot from 17 to 24 September 2026. What makes the Valdespino connection important? Macallan’s owner acquired Valdespino and two Jerez cooperages, giving the distillery control over the full sherry-seasoning process. This is the first Macallan to use casks seasoned with that own-sourced Valdespino sherry, so it marks a shift from bought-in seasoning to in-house custodianship of the oak. What is the TIME : SPACE Collection? It is a limited-edition series launched in September 2024 for Macallan’s 200th anniversary. It began with an 84 Year Old, the oldest whisky the brand

Key Points - Scotch whisky remains one of Scotland’s most important exports, supporting around 40,000 jobs and making a major contribution to the economy - The industry is facing declining demand as consumers drink less alcohol and increasingly prioritise quality over quantity - Distillers warn that high UK taxes on Scotch are limiting investment and could lead to further job losses unless reduced in the Budget - Despite current challenges, smaller producers such as Arbikie see growth opportunities in emerging international markets, particularly in Asia - Rising costs and reduced whisky production are affecting the wider supply chain, with maltsters buying significantly less barley and some facilities closing Scotch whisky is arguably Scotland’s most famous export, a multibillion-pound success story that continues to shape the country’s economy and reputation abroad. The industry supports some 40,000 jobs in Scotland and sustains communities from the Highlands and Islands to the Central Belt through a vast supply chain. However, the whisky industry is facing a challenging period, with demand for the spirit declining in recent years. Habits are changing fast, and the industry is navigating a long-term shift in drinking habits. Consumers are increasingly choosing quality over quantity, and younger generations are drinking less alcohol than their predecessors. The industry has warned that more jobs could be lost unless the tax on Scotch whisky bottles sold in the UK is reduced in the upcoming Budget. Drinks giant Diageo said earlier this week that cuts to its Scottish operation would be essential to safeguard the company’s future. Angus distillery eyes international market The Arbikie distillery, near Montrose in Angus, is ramping up its operations despite the challenging economic backdrop. It makes premium spirits from vegetables on its family farm and is eyeing up new opportunities abroad. “There’s a bit of a downturn in whisky at the moment,” explained John Stirling, chief taster at Arbikie. “For big companies, that can be a slight fall of 3%, but they’re still making a lot of money. I’ve just been back from Singapore and Hong Kong, who are very much single malt drinkers. We see them as the real emerging markets. “Even a tiny increase in orders from India or China, in terms of single malt, we probably wouldn’t have enough single malt in Scotland to cope with the demand, so it’s not all doom and gloom.” John also said Arbikie had observed changing drinking habits in recent years. He added: “The advantage for a smaller distillery like us is that people tend to be drinking less, but they are drinking potentially better. “They’re looking to what they’re actually drinking, what the ingredients went into it, so that’s beneficial for us, the way we produce in a sustainable way and all the ingredients we put into it.” Maltsters also feeling the strain Just a few miles down the road, the Arbroath Maltings plant has undergone a major expansion – including a multi-million-pound investment that overhauled its Clova operation, making it one of the most modern malt production hubs in the UK. But maltsters across Scotland are also feeling the strain, with one in Pencaitland, East Lothian, closing earlier this year. Producing whisky is energy-intensive, and the increase in the price of fuel hasn’t helped those growing grains for the spirit or those distilling it. Maltsters are buying nearly 40% less malting barley now compared with the peak of whisky production in 2022. Owen Southwood, a member of the Malting Association of Great Britain, said: “We’ve had to try and manage our barley stock levels right away from farm through our process because we’re always working two years ahead of when the malt is demanded. “We’re dealing with 850 farmers directly in Scotland, and trying to manage their requirements, as well as ours, has been a particularly difficult thing. “I think as we go forward we will use a lot of the surplus barley in the next 12 months, but it will be a slow incremental increase rather than any major return to normality.” Lifting of US tariffs a welcome reprieve There was some good news for the sector earlier this year when the United States lifted tariffs on Scotch whisky. Scotland exports more whisky to the US than to any other country, with the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) saying the tariffs had cost the industry about £150m, with the US market worth about £933m in 2025. The US had originally imposed a 10% levy on Scotch whisky in April 2025, which had been due to increase earlier this year to 25% for single malts. US President Donald Trump’s previous 25% Scotch tariff between 2019 and 2021 resulted in the sector losing more than £600m, or £1m a day, the SWA said. What does the whisky industry want to see in the Budget? The whisky industry says an increase on tax applied to bottles destined for the UK hasn’t helped their economic fortunes. Mark Kent from the SWA told STV News: “70% of what you pay for a bottle is taxed. When you’ve got the tax at that sort of level, it has an impact on the consumer. Obviously, they’ll think twice about buying their favourite tipple. “It has an impact on the industry; the money that goes in taxes is not money that would have been there for investment and creating jobs. At the moment, what we’re seeing is a very difficult domestic situation in terms of the cost of doing business, and that is leading to pauses in investment and job cuts.” Westminster said they won’t speculate on the upcoming Budget, but reiterated that job growth is a priority. A HM Treasury spokesperson said: “The chancellor is fully focused on his priorities, to give families and businesses a bit of breathing space, back British jobs, and drive growth in every postcode, underpinned by a commitment to meet the fiscal rules. “As has always been the case, decisions on tax are a matter for the chancellor to set out at fiscal events, rather than routinely commenting on rumour, speculation or proposals.” John from Arbikie says the excise duty on spirits is huge in the UK and makes it harder for the industry to grow. He told STV News: We’re competing worldwide as well. We’re competing against Japanese whisky, against different spirits, so it’s a big competitive disadvantage. “I think one of the aspects of single malt, in particular in Scotland and Scotch whisky, is that it’s not just the distillers. “There’s a whole support, there’s the farmers, there’s the maltsters, there’s the lorry drivers. “It’s a large industry that brings a lot of money to Scotland and the UK as a whole. “Therefore, to have such a competitive disadvantage in a changing world economy makes it much harder.” Follow STV News on WhatsApp Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country