To create The Balvenie PortWood 21 year old single malt whisky, a marriage of rare Balvenie is transferred to port casks, or pipes, which have held fine port wines. Here it is sampled regularly by The Balvenie Malt Master David C. Stewart MBE to ensure that just the right amount of character is imparted by the port casks, enhancing and developing the single malt whilst preserving its original characteristics. Considered by many to be David's finest creation, this whisky is one of his proudest achievements and has won an array of highly coveted industry awards since its release in 1996. In duty free, The Balvenie PortWood Aged 21 Years is non chill-filtered and bottled at a higher strength of 47.6% abv.

Crafted to showcase complexity and depth, Rare Cask is drawn from the broadest spectrum of casks used in maturation on The Macallan Estate. Hand-picked by our whisky making team, the combination of sherry seasoned American and European oak casks - a high proportion of them first fill - deliver an exquisite and unmistakably woody whisky with a rich hue. Incomparable access to the most extensive range of cooperages in Spain gives us some of the finest and scarcest casks to choose from to create Rare Cask, which results in a diversity in the finished whisky unlike other Macallan expression. It is the role of the whisky making team to get to know each and every cask in detail, from how it interacts with the spirit to the spectrum of colours it imparts. This relationship between cask and craftsman, spirit and skill, ultimately give us Rare Cask.