Port Ellen 24 Years Old 1978 Cask #02/159/1 (Signatory)

Single malt Port Ellen, an independent Signatory Vintage bottling at 24 year old, from 1978, drawn from cask 02/159/1 and bottled at 58%. 804 bottles in all. Port Ellen was founded in 1825 on Islay's rocky southern seaboard and mothballed for good in 1983. Annual Special Releases through Diageo sealed its mythic status.

The malt was peated hard over Islay peat cut from Duich Moss, for a smoke more graceful than its Islay neighbours. The spirit was worked through copper pot stills by the sea. A wine cask shaped it, the fruit and tannin meeting the Islay smoke. Well past twenty years the peat has mellowed to soft embers, the malt grown waxy and elegant. Long, cool maturation in Islay warehouses lets the smoke knit slowly with the oak.

At a full 58% it is concentrated and oily. The Port cask adds smoked plum and red berry, and light oak sweetness underneath, while a briny peat smoke carries brine, wax and a mineral edge. A lanolin wax and a coastal salinity give it real weight. Deep and elegant, the smoke lingers long. This is a vanishing dram from Islay's most storied closed distillery.