Port Ellen 42 Years Old 1981 Cask #290 (G&M) (52.5%)

Bottled by Gordon & MacPhail, this Port Ellen, aged 42 year old, from 1981, drawn from cask 290 and bottled at 52.5%. A release of 60 bottles. Opened in 1825 on Islay's rocky southern seaboard, Port Ellen was mothballed for good in 1983. Port Ellen distilled again from 2024, yet this is spirit from the closed era.

The barley was kilned over peat to around thirty five phenol parts per million and worked through copper pot stills by the sea, to lend the elegant, lightly medicinal smoke of the south shore. Maturation in Oloroso sherry laid smoked dried fruit over the peat. At this great age the peat is a ghostly whisper over beeswax, old oak and sea salt. Decades in oak soften the phenols, turning sharp peat reek into mellow embers.

At a full 52.5% it is concentrated and oily. The Oloroso brings smoked fig, raisin and walnut, and a graceful Islay smoke runs over a waxy, briny lift, with a light vanilla from the refill oak. The texture is oily and coating, the smoke threaded with sea salt. The finish smoulders gently, oily and long. This is stock from the legendary closed era, ever scarcer.