A GRAND TOUR
The Macallan Masters Journey combines the distillery’s finest Scotch whiskies with a private jet and yacht charter.
As questions go, the biggest one involved with the Macallan Masters Journey is whether to open the best bottles on the private jet or save them for the chartered yacht. ¶ For a base price of $46,000, a group of 13 guests can taste the Macallan’s Masters Series — including the Macallan Rare Cask, the Macallan Reflexion, the Macallan No. 6 and the Macallan M — while flying aboard a Monarch Air private jet from New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport to Florida. There, luxury cars are waiting for the drive to the dock in Hallandale Beach, where a Golden Yacht Charters cruise to Miami begins aboard an 80- to 116-foot Ferretti or Azimut. The entire experience takes about two to three hours by plane, and then another three or so hours by yacht, which means guests have to decide whether to open the premier bottles
in flight or, say, bring along an extra bottle of the Macallan’s 25 for the plane and wait to taste the big boys with food pairings on the yacht. ¶ “I advise to have it waiting on the yacht,” says Raquel Raies, the national brand ambassador who conceived the experience — and who will go along as a host, for an additional fee. “You can start your tasting on the jet, but the bottles are in elite crystal, so moving them around from the jet to the yacht risks breakage. Then the yacht is waiting with the beautiful bottles, and you can have the pairings with the food, and you’ll have all day as well.” ¶ The idea, she says, is to further enhance what is already a top-shelf tasting: “If you’ve got a yacht, it’s an elevated experience regardless. For me, drinking these expressions of the Macallan is a great memory. It makes memorable moments even more memorable.”