Elizabeth Yard Diamond (Port Mourant) Diamond Distillery 2011

Elizabeth Yard bottled this 2011 Diamond at ten years old and cask strength, 49.8 percent, listed against the Port Mourant double wooden pot still recreated at the Diamond site and finished in port wood. It is a single cask in the unsweetened independent style, showing strong barrel integration alongside the heavier pot-still distillate.

The port wood is clearly at work, lending sherry-like richness, burnt sugar, caramel and vanilla across both nose and palate, with the wood and spice of the PM still underneath, then a warm, peppery, dry and woody finish. Drinkers note this as a well-judged example of wood and spirit reading together, where the cask shapes rather than smothers the distillate. At natural strength it is a darker, sweeter-framed Port Mourant where the port finish leads while the still keeps it from turning soft.