🥃 Eh-oh! It's The Macallan: Part 1
- Jul 28
- 3 min read
Well, it was only a matter of time. Resistance is futile, so they say.
I came across this Victorian overmantel at a recent auction; the image of the bottle caught my eye – particularly because of the names at the bottom of the label.
So now some Macallan-esque content finally makes its way into a Whisky Through Time article.
If you’re like me and not currently a fan of The Macallan, you might feel the urge to switch off or even unsubscribe. Eek. Fear not – this isn’t a sycophantic synopsis of a self-styled luxury Scotch whisky brand. Rather, it’s an opportunity to dig a little deeper into the two names that appear on that bottle label: Priest & Davidson.
Admittedly, they sound like a detective agency from a daytime telly drama. Not much has been written about the duo, though, so I thought it’d be interesting to try to find out more…
Some of you may recognise the names – and the bottle – from The Macallan 1841 Replica release (the third in The Macallan Replica Series). The series (the others were 1861, 1874 and 1876) supposedly captures the style, character and presentation of Macallan’s historic 19th‑century bottlings.
Except it doesn’t.
The antique bottles the Macallan team purchased from a collector, and on which the replicas were based, turned out to be fake. So this series of replicas was based on fake bottles. Ahem. Rather embarrassing, really.
Anyway, back to 1841 and our dynamic duo, Priest & Davidson. First: who were they? Second: why are they rarely mentioned when people talk about The Macallan?
Our plucky pair were James Shearer Priest and James Davidson, who took over running the distillery in 1848 – or maybe 1847, as stated on the 1841 Replica carton. Given the replica issue above, though, we might want to take that date with a pinch of salt.
Before them, Alexander Reid owned and ran the Macallan distillery. He died in October 1847, when his son (also Alexander) took over. Alexander junior died the following March, at just twenty-five, and it appears Priest and Davidson then assumed control. So, to me, 1848 seems the likelier of the two dates.
James Shearer Priest was the son of a farmer at Lochside farm, just north of Elgin. James Davidson, by contrast, was a corn merchant (a financially successful one, by all accounts) and an innkeeper.
Perhaps they’re rarely mentioned because their tenure was so short‑lived. In 1851 the partnership was dissolved.
My only educated guess as to why is that James Shearer Priest decided to head to Australia – perhaps seeking his fortune. His gravestone suggests he was there, and his great‑grand‑niece (who I managed to trace – yes, these are the lengths I go to each week) provided an excerpt of James’s brother’s will supporting that. Neither of us, however, knows for sure why he left.
The 1871 census shows he was back in Scotland, farming at Lochside – so perhaps he didn’t find his fortune after all. Priest died in 1874, aged fifty‑four, having married just two years earlier.
After the partnership ended in 1851, James Davidson continued as the sole proprietor of the Macallan distillery. Considered an astute businessman, Davidson ran both the distillery and the farm until his death in 1868 – he had been preparing for retirement but popped his clogs before he could actually put his feet up. He was married and had two daughters and a son.
However, his son didn’t continue running the distillery. It then passed to James Stuart, who operated it until 1892, when Roderick Kemp acquired it.
When Roderick died, his son‑in‑law ran the distillery until his death. Now, if you’re prepared to spend eight minutes of your life that you’ll never get back, you can watch this video produced by The Macallan commemorating Roderick’s daughter, Nettie, filling the cask for the 1926 bottling that was released three years ago - just click on the image below.
And as we celebrate that bottle’s centenary this year, in tomorrow’s follow‑up email for paying subscribers I’ll honour the factual inaccuracies of this video by tearing it apart faster than you can say “dodgy replica.”
Slàinte! Justine