Port Ellen 24 Years Old 1982 (The Whisky Fair)

Bottled by The Whisky Fair, this Port Ellen, aged 24 year old, from 1982 and bottled at 59.6%. Just 509 bottles were filled. Port Ellen was first founded in 1825 on Islay's southern coast near the village of Port Ellen and closed in 1983 in the whisky downturn. The stills ran once more from 2024, but this whisky predates the revival.

The barley was kilned over peat to around thirty five phenol parts per million and run through copper pot stills on soft island water, for the austere, structured peat the malt is known for. An Oloroso sherry cask wrapped the smoke in dried fruit and a nutty depth. Well past twenty years the peat has mellowed to soft embers, the malt grown waxy and elegant. Decades in oak soften the phenols, turning sharp peat reek into mellow embers.

Bottled at a cask strength 59.6%, it is intense. The Oloroso brings smoked fig, raisin and walnut, and a briny peat smoke runs over lemon peel and sea brine, with light oak sweetness underneath. The mouthfeel is oily, the smoke carried on a waxy body. Deep and elegant, the smoke lingers long. This is a vanishing dram from Islay's most storied closed distillery.