An Interview with Stuart Macpherson

He might be the Master of Wood at Macallan, but the last thing I would describe Stuart Macpherson as is “wooden”.

Genial, humorous and patient, he gives an aura of someone who enjoys sharing his vast knowledge with whisky aficionados and novices alike.  Yet despite his easy manner, he has been in the industry for 36 years. Starting as a cooper, he gradually moved into management, eventually taking on the dual role of the Master of Wood, where he manages the relationships between Macallan and its wood suppliers in Spain while travelling the world educating enthusiasts on the role of wood whisky making.

Yet, for all his decades of experience in the industry,  he is humble; he remarks self-effacingly,  “I defy anybody who could really talk about the whole [whisky making] process in great details. You’re always learning, always focused on a certain aspect or role but generally speaking you could be in the industry all your days and not know everything.”

The Master of Wood

As a veteran of the industry, Stuart knows wood and its effects on whisky intimately.  He explains it to me, “I think people had the perception before that had a lot to do with the water, the barley. For us, these are factors between the cereal, the water, the distillation process, but the vast majority is the casks.”  Macallan, it seems, places much stock in that. As one of the few remaining distilleries involved deeply in the creation of the casks used in whisky maturation, it has a lot of control on the most important of factors in the production of single malts. According to Stuart, Macallan spends more on its casks than any other single malt – a sign of commitment.

Many of the oak trees that Macallan uses come from Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria in the north of Spain, where Stuart spends part of his time just looking at the timber that has been cut. He also spends much time in Jerez, where Macallan’s supplier cooperages and seasoning bodegas are.  “We don’t go in and buy casks from just anybody. We have a very much controlled process where we engage with our suppliers just exactly what we want. We give them feedback on how we see our casks maturing. And that is same to an extent with the sherry bodegas that we use.”

As many who are familiar with the distiller would know,  Macallan is focused on using the sherry seasoning process on the European Oak, quercus robur.  The European wood forms the backbone of Macallan, giving the rich mahogany colour, the dried fruits and spices that are its hallmark. Stuart remarks, “As the brand has grown, we’re stuck with that process. Why change something when it works?”

Casks made of the American Oak, quercus alba, are usually seasoned with bourbon, and then sold to eager Scots by the American bourbon industry (due in large part to a quirk in American laws that specify that casks used in bourbon product can only be used once).  Yet Macallan does something quite different. 

“We’re one of the very few companies which uses American oak that has been sherry seasoned. Most people are using American bourbon seasoning; but the combination of three different things: the two different types of wood, sherry and ex-bourbon gives us a lot of options. ”

Stuart is quick to correct a common misconception; despite the heavy use of sherry to season the casks, it’s more about the wood than the fortified wine itself.”It hasn’t been proved that the sherry itself offers something. It does take and remove some of the harshness that we don’t want.”

I put the question to Stuart – would he, an expert, be able to tell how a tree that fell in a certain place would turn out? He laughs and laments “No, I wish I could. Unfortunately, it’s just one of these things. Okay, you can maybe pick a tree in terms of growth and how much you can utilise out of that tree but I’m afraid I don’t have these skills, or I’d be picking out numbers for the national lottery.”  For all the science and modern techniques in whisky production, no one can say for sure how a cask, or the whisky inside it, will turn out. Wood, after all, is a natural product.

Yet, for all that uncertainty in using natural products, the Master of Wood has an even more daunting task: to look into the future.  The felling of the trees, the drying of the wood and the seasoning process, till the delivery of the cask in Scotland takes approximately 6 years. To figure out how much wood one would need to produce enough of a 12 year old whisky would need him to think 18 years ahead. For Stuart, though, that’s just part of the job.

A Rare Cask

There are a number of expressions used within the Macallan range, where the wood used leaves its indelible signature. The 12s, the 18s, 25s,  are more focused on the European Oak, while the 15 Year Fine Oak uses American sherry seasoned oak and also the ex-bourbon barrels.  Yet, few of even these excellent drams can match the complexity of Macallan’s latest release, the Rare Cask.

“Rare cask in itself is the most complex whisky that we’ve ever put together. It took 16 different cask styles. It’s a combination of different cask types. Some butts, puncheons, hogsheads. Predominantly first fill, American and Spanish [oak]. We’ve also got a number of cask suppliers that have constructed the different casks over the years. We’ve then got casks seasoned in bodegas, but what really makes it really rare in that respect is that some of the casks will never be used again. Some of the bodegas are no longer in operation, and have closed down. It was created by using less than 1% of our total stock only.”

Traditionalists might shy away from whiskies with no age statements, such as Rare Cask, or even consider them to be of lower quality, despite all the effort that goes into their creation. Yet, here Stuart shares also his view. “We were talking about the flexibility of the range years and it gives the opportunity for the whisky maker to be creative. So we’ve moved away slightly from the number on the bottle, but never compromising the product.” Having tasted Rare Cask myself, I can heartily agree that it is a very complex, layered whisky indeed.

He elaborates on this point, comparing a cask to an individual. “We all mature at different stages in our lives. And a cask is no different. It’s an actual product. That option gives the whisky maker the option to say, well this cask is matured in my view, in 10 years.” Much of the furore over the age statements of the whisky have to with age, and Stuart has a strong opinion on that.

“I think we also have to move away from the idea that darker is older, or that older in terms of a number is better. I can see why it’s done. In the early 20th century, when we [the whisky industry] said we’re going to create a 10 year old. And then marketing people would go “wait a minute, 12’s better than 10”. Then people think that’s older, so it must be better. Then the 15 would be even better than that. We created that problem ourselves, and now because of the demand the supply, stocks, we’ve had to look at something different. What we can’t do is then start to compromise the product.”

A Personal Note

The Master of Wood is anything but snobbish, however. “How you drink your whiskies…well you’re the consumer. That’s another thing that people need to try to move away from. There’s a stigmatism on how you should drink them. You should really drink them how you enjoy them.”

There’s certainly something to be said about enjoying your drink the way you want it. There is just one last question to be answered, though.

“I mean sometimes people ask me if I enjoy drinking whisky. I always tell people that it’s about sitting in a bar in Jerez with some of our suppliers that have made the casks. And they’re really having an opportunity to sample a Macallan in a bar in their home city made in the casks they produced- so there’s this whole circle. For me, it’s quite romantic, quite nice to sit and reflect on a job well done by everybody.”