Scotch Brand Showcases Art Through A HoloLens Gallery And An Immersive ARKit App

Scottish distillery, The Macallan unbottles its products’ elements via its augmented reality app.

The brand has developed a mixed-reality app for Microsoft HoloLens, which offers an animation into the whisky-making process, starting with the American and European types of oak trees used to make aging casks.

While the AR experience is designed to animate around a bottle of The Macallan, they are also providing another experience with their “Gallery 12” art exhibit, which debuted in New York City in October. Guests could wear Microsoft HoloLens to learn the history of the brand and the origins of the flavors as they viewed theme-inspired art pieces. Users could see the American and European oak forests.

At the New York pop-up, guests could walk through the AR experience in a gallery setting. The gallery also had sculptures representing different steps of the whisky production processes. The brand launched the app to teach consumers about Macallan’s whiskies at the exhibit.

The Macallan’s downloadable AR app utilizes Apple’s ARKit platform for iOS 11.

Raul Gonzalez, VP Marketing and Business Development at The Macallan says,

The Macallan is always at the forefront of innovation, tirelessly seeking the best ways to connect with our technologically-savvy audience. As we have used virtual reality in the past, using AR in Gallery 12 was a natural next step in bringing the two stories of our core 12 Year Old expressions to life. It’s an innovative and fun way to have drinkers learn about and enjoy both 12 Year Old whiskies.

In addition to the New York pop-up, The Macallan gallery experience also appeared in Miami in the past month and will travel to Chicago, Houston and San Francisco in November.

This exclusive experience is a common practice for luxury branding. Nonetheless, if you don’t reside in or visit one of those cities, as long as you have an iPhone, you can still enjoy the entire experience.