Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ghost and Rare Port Ellen (John Walker & Sons)

This is part of Johnnie Walker's Ghost and Rare series, blended Scotch whiskies built around malts and grains from distilleries that have closed. Each release names a headline ghost distillery; this one is led by Port Ellen, the revered Islay malt, and draws on rare and dwindling stocks. Grain from Caledonian, the Edinburgh distillery known as the Cally and closed in 1988, is among the components that give the blend its body.

A blend marries malt and grain whiskies, here including spirit from distilleries no longer working. Caledonian grain lends a light, sweet, oily frame, while the malts bring smoke, fruit and depth. The whiskies were married and rested before bottling at 43.8 percent. The distillery joined the Distillers Company in 1884 as its seventh member, and was for a time the largest in the land.

On the palate it is layered and elegant, a soft Islay smoke from the Port Ellen over coconut, vanilla and a creamy grain sweetness, with orchard fruit and a long, gently smoky finish. A blend that turns the casks of vanished distilleries into something rare and whole. Grain whisky of this age is prized for the way light spirit and active oak meet over the decades, the wood giving most of the flavour.