The whisky macs: Stella and Mary McCartney hit the bar(ware)

Aromas, objects and tastes operate as portals into a palimpsest of memories. When fine art and portrait photographer Mary McCartney first visited the Macallan estate on the river Spey in north-east Scotland in 2020, the peat and mineral smells, rare wildflowers and misty light transported her straight back to High Park Farm, her childhood home in Kintyre. “I could not stop FaceTiming Stella to show her even the tiniest blade of grass. Our relationship first bonded in Scotland and I said, ‘I think you should be here with me!’”

Mary, Stella, their brother James and half-sister Heather spent their formative years on the farm, first going there when their father, Paul McCartney, was in the midst of The Beatles’ split. The sisters, two years apart, would roam on horseback: embarking on camping expeditions, exploring the wild landscape and making up adventures. The experience left an indelible impression and shaped a shared love of nature and horses that has continued to this day.

When Mary was invited to the Macallan estate by Jaume Ferràs, the brand’s global creative director, to shoot a portrait of Sir Peter Blake (who co-designed the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover — and is Mary’s godfather) for a limited-edition release of its renowned single malt, she jumped at the chance to revisit the wild landscapes of her childhood. “It was a dream job. I was out in nature, by the riverside and exploring the new distillery,” says Mary of The Macallan, which was founded in 1824 and is known for using distinctly small copper-pot stills and sherry-seasoned oak casks.

During that visit, Ferràs began brewing the idea that fashion designer Stella and Mary might want to collaborate on a project to design a range of bar accessories. It is the latest in a series of collaborative projects for the estate that have included Bentley Motors and James Bond films. Stella was quickly persuaded by the lure of working with her sister, making a first foray into homeware and being given a creative carte blanche. 

We wanted to celebrate craft and the hand

“Well, we weren’t going to do shortbread and fudge!” says the 52-year-old designer. “I have such incredible respect for historical and qualitative produce and The Macallan is like nothing I have seen before, because working in fashion things are not often treated and cared for in that way. I thought, this is so insular, refined and uses so few ingredients — there are parallels with how I work. Plus, whisky is always a man’s world so, for me, this was also an opportunity to be part of a new element of the storytelling: two mothers, two entrepreneurs, two daughters of . . . and we can be part of it.” 

The sisters have collaborated previously but not as often as one might imagine. They first worked together on the packaging for the vegetarian and vegan line Linda McCartney Foods, which their mother had launched in 1991. Then, during the Covid lockdown, Mary shot a playful campaign for the Stella McCartney collection at the family home. Most recently, her portraits of horses appeared on silk and sequin slip dresses in McCartney’s AW23 collection that was presented at the Manège de L’École Militaire in Paris, with seven Camargue horses leading the parade. “People have approached but, for us, any collaboration has to be exceptional, true and like nothing else,” says Stella, who is cautious of being labelled a “double act” cliché.

Their collaboration started with the home bar, something that — with homes across the UK and France, along with plenty of entertaining smarts between them — they could happily envision. “We are both narrative in what we do, and we were thinking about the experience and the user,” says Mary. “First came the ice bucket and the tray. As we both grew up loving ceramics and glass, then came the tumblers, coasters and bowls. The most frivolous object is the napkin weight featuring bronze acorns. We are two acorns — but it also references the oak trees on the estate and the wooden whisky casks.” The 11 pieces also include a 100 per cent lambswool blanket and a ceramic flask, and the 300 sets will be presented in a special box (£10,000).

“We wanted to celebrate craft and the hand, and to bring the human touch into everything,” says Stella, who worked with the Macallan estate to source artisans and looked to her own connections for materials such as the apple leather inlay on the brass serving tray. The ceramic coasters, ice stamp handles and nibble bowls in red, amber and green ombre glazes (mirroring the landscape hues) are made in Italy, while the lambswool blanket is made in the UK. 

“I was wary that we might fall out — or fall into designated roles of me designing the product and Mary wrapping it in a visual world — but we both worked on everything together,” says Stella. “The process was effortless, but as we’re both perfectionists there were challenges.” She points to the elegant, square-rimmed etched-glass tumblers, a seemingly simple shape that is lovely to hold. “We spent time together, thinking about beauty in design and creating pieces that are original but quite classic,” Mary interjects. “The range needed to feel like luxury, like home, and like it has been there for a long time.” 

The siblings, who now have eight children between them, also had the opportunity to reflect on their own formative years and the way the Scottish landscape shaped their imaginations. The isolation, hard on a teenager, proved to be a taskmaster. “Scotland was an escape, it was isolation and a conscious choice to be in the huge landscape of nature,” says Stella of their parents’ farm, which they made home in 1969. “Boredom was a gift in that sense, which is hard to imagine now when we so often say, ‘There’s no time.’ As kids and teenagers there was sometimes an urge to get out of there, but now those moments in remote Scotland seem the most precious.

“One of my earliest memories is banging rocks together to release this pale purple-pink dust,” she continues. “Life there was about riding and falling off horses — constantly. Every day there was a lost horse and we would walk miles back to the farm only to find it was back in the stable.” 

For Mary, the light remains a muse. “With the clouds, rain and mist there are a lot of beautiful elements to catch and filter the light. The river and its force, the birds, the smells — Scotland is about elements,” says the photographer, who has captured a series of landscape and close-up nature studies for packaging of the Harmony collection of single malts (which are being released this month, £160) alongside limited-edition framed prints.

While Stella became entranced by the whisky mastery team whose concoctions include honeysuckle, citrus and oak aromas (akin to working with noses in the perfume business), Mary learned to savour, and created her own “serve” with a splash of soda, a slice of apple and blackberries. The Proustian trigger of aroma and taste, served with their own bar accessories, will likely evoke many more bonding moments in the years to come.