After months of renovation, The Macallan House reveals its stunningly transformed space. Housed at Raffles Singapore, the experiential retail space showcases The Macallan Estate in Scotland. Following the success of The Macallan Experience in 2020 and the strong relationships built through the boutique, The Macallan built the concept of "Nature Culture" to exemplify the brand's commune with nature and time through multi-sensory touch points. Designed by renowned architect Jamie Fobert, visitors will traipse through the 3,000 square area and experience nature through "sight, scent, touch and taste".
No detail is too small for the construction of The Macallan House Singapore. Each aspect of the different spaces showcases key elements of our six pillars making up the storied history of the brand and the mastery that plays into every drop of The Macallan. Like the copper walls (represents The Macallan's curiously small stills); the colour red (associated with Alexander Reid, The Macallan's founding father); Albariza stone (celebrates the fertile soil from Jerez la Fronter, Spain, home to the sherry wine cask that The Macallan is aged in); waved walls (illustrates the River Spey and the beauty of the Scottish county) and oak flooring (denotes use of the sherry seasoned casks that gives our whiskies its unique flavour profile and natural colour).
The exquisite design of The Macallan House Singapore brings together unique references from the brand. Embodying the spirit of innovation and creativity, it strengthens the profound connection to nature that defines The Macallan.
Collaborating with Singaporean artists like Nathan Yong and Tiffany Loy adds a local specialness to the occasion. Yong's sculpture "The Estate" and Tiffany Loy's woven fabric mural, "Natural Colour," are inspired by The Macallan’s commitment towards the natural colour of its whiskies and its amber hues. To round up the sensory aspect of the experience, Mimi Xu Studio provides an original ambient score—"The Macallan Ballad" which is a field recording of the surrounding nature sounds from The Macallan Estate.
Walking through The Macallan House adds on to the chapters in the ongoing story of The Macallan. Be transported to the grounds of Speyside, Scotland. Where you're privy to the rich biodiversity that nature affords in The Macallan's ethos. Via the sight, scents, sound and even touch, experience the four micro-climates of The Macallan Estate: the fields of barley; the River Spey; the woodland and Easter Elchies House.
The Macallan House will host various seasonal programmes and menus from 13 September. Other offerings like the daily gift wrapping and bottle engraving are available every Saturday. To celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, from 14-30 September, a complimentary Raffles Singapore signature mooncake will accompany every dram ordered.
Click here for more information and/or to book a guided tour.
"Crafted without compromise. Please savour The Macallan responsibly."
Sitting at H Bar, in the Post Oak Marriott Hotel in Houston, Texas, my face gradually becoming beet red from the hops in the beer that was slowly, but surely, revealing my Asian body’s inability to effectively process the alcohol, I started to ponder.
Why was I having a beer anyway, knowing full well that I lack the enzyme in my body to properly breakdown the alcohol in this specific class of intoxicant?
It’s not like I very much like the taste of beer, but perhaps I’ve been conditioned to believe the golden elixir is the "proper" inebriant for a "real man." Where a "real man", especially one who drinks, but may not necessarily enjoy beer, fits in the modern context is perhaps an increasingly unclear proposition.
There was a time when a "real man" worked with his hands, his sweaty body requiring the refreshment of a nice-cold beer after a hard day’s work, typically outdoors and exposed to the elements. Today, most men work with their hands still, in anonymous open-plan offices or shared workspaces, hammering away not at nails, but keyboards.
In centuries past, the liberalisation of women could arguably have been the focus, but the past several decades could possibly be seen as the "liberalisation of men". Whereas women were deservedly breaking out of their gender-specific roles, that sea change also afforded men the opportunity to redefine what it means to be a modern man.
For men, giving up their careers to dedicate themselves to domestic roles as the key caretaker of home and offspring is no longer seen as something to be concealed but celebrated. And many of the stereotypical qualities associated with so-called “toxic” masculinity have started to be chipped away at, replaced with more fluid concepts that appear increasingly tolerant of various interpretations of what being a man is.
Yet despite the progress made in redefining the modern man in virtually every area of life, one area which appears to remain “Old Fashioned” is at the bar—there’s even a drink named after it!
Disagree? Attempt a first date by ordering a lychee martini for yourself from the mixologist and look out for the noticeable flinch from your date. That tropical cocktail with the little umbrella? You might not be looking at a second date.
As much as it ought not be the case, we can’t help but at least form an impression of each other by what we wear, do for a living, and of course, order at the bar.
Scotch and soda? Safe, staid, if not a little bit boring.
Blue Curacao? A Pandora’s box.
The same way a man in the eighties and nineties could have been judged for ordering a salad on a first date, similarly, would a date not judge a man based on what he orders from the bartender today?
To be sure, change is afoot, as evidenced in the advertising of the liquor companies, with a subtle shift towards more “friendly” beverages, many of them mixed. But one can’t help recognising the predominant message is of a certain brand of masculinity when it comes to most male-targeted spirits. Backdrops of hunting and the Scottish countryside certainly seem to suggest the beverage was intended to be imbibed by men, sans mixers of any sort.
Yet there seems one representation of a man who is partial to a cocktail—Ian Fleming’s creation of James Bond. While Bond may have preferred white spirits, his cocktail of choice, a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred wasn’t always served in the most “manly looking” stemware. Which brings us down to the question of glassware—does the vessel imbue its beverage with so-called “manliness” or lack thereof? In a lineup of various glasses to serve drinks, would one argue that a whiskey glass is decidedly more manly than say, a martini glass?
A wine glass possesses more machismo than say a champagne flute? But if so, who became the judge of what manly glassware is?
Yet somehow, and at least this is something I know I am certainly guilty of, in the back of our minds, there is an unwritten hierarchy to glassware for drinks and a beer mug must certainly rank quite high on the testosterone scale. And if it’s not the glassware that matters, surely the colour of the cocktail makes a difference too?
Is a blue curacao necessarily less manly than a whiskey sour? I would think there are more than a few who would believe so.
A Midori cocktail, more effeminate than a vodka tonic?
Unwittingly, there are so many of us, myself included, who pull up to a bar and especially if we’re getting a drink alone, would scarcely dare to order some cocktail in a neon green or blue hue.
If we as a society are to break gender stereotypes wherever they exist, then this must surely extend to the cocktail bar as well.
So as my mind drifted to these thoughts at the H Bar that summer afternoon, I gulped down what remained of my beer and motioned for the barkeep, not for the bill, but to whisper, somewhat conspiratorially, “I’ll have a mai tai please, and oh, if it’s not too much trouble, could you put an umbrella in it?”
Baby steps.
