Port Ellen 25 Years Old 1982 Cask #DL 3478 (Douglas Laing)

Bottled by Douglas Laing, this Port Ellen matured to 25 year old, from 1982, drawn from cask DL 3478 and bottled at 57.5%. Only 512 bottles were released. Port Ellen stood on Islay's rocky southern seaboard from its founding in 1825 until it was mothballed for good in 1983. 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 worked through copper pot stills by the sea, to lend the elegant, lightly medicinal smoke of the south shore. An Oloroso butt held it, sherry and smoke twining together. At this age the smoke turns gentle and oily, the spirit deep, briny and refined. Decades in oak soften the phenols, turning sharp peat reek into mellow embers.

Undiluted at 57.5%, it is deep and smoky. The Oloroso brings smoked fig, raisin and walnut, and a briny peat 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. Deep and elegant, the smoke lingers long. This is prized stock from a distillery reborn only in 2024.