Macallan – 1950 Atkinson Baldwin & Co Ltd Handwritten Label (75cl, 43%)

This is a Macallan 1950 Speyside single malt from the series now known as Handwritten Label. It was released in 1980 or 1981 at 43%, in a 75cl bottle, for Atkinson, Baldwin & Co. It was one of several Macallan vintages in their thirties bottled under licence around the turn of the 1980s. Gordon & MacPhail, Matthew Clark and the Italian distributor Rinaldi Import issued near-identical bottlings. Macallan later took its official bottlings in-house and launched the Anniversary Malts in 1983. It is described as rancio-heavy, waxy and tropical fruity, sitting between the earthy, coal-hearth character of 1950s Macallan and the resinous, peaty, fruit-rich 1940s style.