Port Ellen 1982 3R (Three Rivers Tokyo (3R)) (55.7%)

This Port Ellen was from the independent bottler Three Rivers Tokyo (3R), a 26 year old from 1982, drawn from cask 2473 and bottled at 55.7%. Port Ellen stood on Islay's rocky southern seaboard from its founding in 1825 until it was mothballed for good in 1983. Diageo reopened the distillery in 2024, though stock like this comes from the original era.

Heavily peated malt, kilned over Islay peat, set the smoky tone and worked through copper pot stills by the sea, to lend the elegant, lightly medicinal smoke of the south shore. Maturation in a refill ex-Bourbon barrel kept the malt lean and smoky. Well past twenty years the peat has mellowed to soft embers, the malt grown waxy and elegant. Years by the Atlantic give the malt its briny, oily weight. The closed years only deepened the legend around the malt. A whisky measured now in dwindling casks rather than fresh spirit.

At its natural 55.7% it is rich and briny. An elegant, structured smoke runs over a waxy, briny lift, with gentle oak vanilla beneath the smoke. The texture is oily and coating, the smoke threaded with sea salt. The finish runs oily, saline and slow. This is prized stock from a distillery reborn only in 2024.