The Macallan Brand Experience

The new Macallan Distillery by Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners blends organically into the striking landscape of Speyside, Scotland. Inside, the Visitor Experience, conceived by Atelier Brückner, combines the themes of nature and whisky. Tamschick Media+Space contributed final designs and productions for four installations, representing the traditional brand in a multisensory way since June 2018.

The visitors’ journey begins at the "Brand Wall", a shelf stocked with 840 whisky bottles. The ceiling-high installation tells the brand's story in a choreography of projection and light. The space behind it, the "Jewel Box", awaits visitors with a sliding touchscreen serving as an interactive periscope. By moving the screen, the visitor can explore the bottles one by one to discover detailed information. A selective illumination cross-references the highlighted exhibit to other exhibits along the wall.

In the "Wood Story", the visitor explores two narrative zones on the way to a cask exhibited in the center of the production. In the outer circle, a kinetic installation of swiveling oak blades immerses the visitor in living forests with projections and soundscapes. Poetic animations portray the unhurried growth of oak trees used for whisky casks. The subsequently opening inner circle of the "Cooperage" shows a montage on oversized planks, using footage exclusively created in Spain. Here the visitor experiences first-hand how wood deforms in the heat of fire and how it is used to build a cask. The exciting performance of kinetics, light, fire and smoke effects, of moving imagery and dynamic music, conveys the journey from trunk to plank, from tying to burning out, in an impressive and engaging manner.

The "Whisky Story" allows the visitor to peek at a whisky maker's intriguing work while listening to the dialogue between him and his creation. The sensation’s space, circling around a rotund studio table with real sample-bottles, enwraps the visitor in a choreography of atmospheric film sequences and stimulating music. Collage-like projections on wall and table surfaces depict the tranquility of a warehouse and the complex flavors deriving from the aging process inside the cask. Brightly illuminated samples capture the vivid color range of whisky. The visitors witness the magical moment of whisky creation and watch the whisky maker compose a new whisky out of a number of samples. The precious liquids seem to gather in the center of the table where a bottle of The Macallan rises in the finale.