Suzanne Leher from Vanity Fair has written a fabulous review of the VIP taster evening hosted in New York by The Macallan and Roja Dove.  Macallan Whiskey came to Roja Dove to develop a pioneering and highly original tool for whiskey appreciation and learning to be used by the Macallan Ambassadors. The Aroma Box was presented to leading US press at a VIP dinner and led them on a sensory journey:

“In order to create the fragrances for the Box, Dove culled ingredients (inspired from those found in the Macallan’s range of whiskies) from the likes of 50-year-aged sandalwood and vanilla bourbon from Madagascar, with an emphasis on purity and quality. The aptly titled “professor of perfume” served as our olfactory tour guide for the evening, personally leading us through all 12 scents and the feelings and flavors each is meant to evoke. While one was described as reminiscent of “the annoying nephew at a dinner party,” its contrasting scent was labeled “the mature older relative.”

“Some were so subtle we had to “chase the scent” to actually smell it, while others hit us squarely in the face—or nose. By turns heady, floral, mouth-watering (chocolate-orange!), and spicy, the fragrances lent an impressive backstory to the whiskey, and allowed me to distinguish each layer of flavor in my glass…”

“Being so conscious of the fragrances throughout my meal enabled me to re-discover and identify flavors in the food and drink in an entirely new way. I’d go so far as to say the Aroma Box is the most thought-provoking dinner accompaniment I have ever encountered. I’ll go even further in saying that I’d take it over a boring bread basket any day. And I’ll drink to that.”

Read the full article HERE

Roja was asked to travel to New York and Los Angeles by The Macallan whisky company. They hosted exclusive tastings and VIP events to demonstrate how the bespoke Aroma Box, created by Roja in collaboration with The Macallan, can help you explore and understand the many different flavours of The Macallan whisky.

Evan Orensten writes for Cool Hunting:

The Macallan and Roja Dove Sensory Experience takes people through the spectrum of scent, educating the nose in common whisky notes. It’s meant to help people approach the whisky palate without the immediate—and often overpowering—alcoholic sensation so that later on, tasting the whiskey may bring out characteristics that may otherwise have been missed. “Everybody so far has said that they are shocked that they are able to smell things in the whisky that they have never, ever noticed before,” explains Dove. I was lucky enough to spend an hour going through the Experience with Dove and David Cox, director of The Macallan’s Fine and Rare whiskies and indeed learned to distinguish the various components that give whisky its flavor.

To read the full article on the Cool Hunting blog, click here

For more information about Roja’s collaboration with The Macallan, read “Quiet please. Whisky sleeping…” at Global Blue

The Macallan – The Power Of Fragrance: Blog Site Presentation. 30th September 2010. The Macallan whiskey-tasting tool created exclusively for Macallan by Roja Dove is presented to US Bloggers NotCot and LAist, these blog sites who have seen many innovative brand collaborations during their tours around the world of what is hot was fabulous were both blown away by the journey of scent and taste they were taken on.

Macallan Whiskey came to Roja Dove to develop a pioneering and highly original tool for whiskey appreciation and learning to be used by the Macallan Ambassadors. The parallels between the perfume and drinks industries are great due to smell having such an important part to play in deciding upon and appreciation fine drink. The twelve bespoke scents created to assist either the layperson or connoisseur experience the nuances in the different whiskey available from Macallan. Whiskey has a volatility when smelt due to the alcohol content that can disengage people when presented with a selection to sample so this tool is invaluable.